


Not in lone splendour

by nerddowell



Series: Once Upon a Time... [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore, Stardust - Neil Gaiman, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alexander Pierce being Creepy as Usual, Alternate Universe - Norse Religion & Lore, Baldr Loki's onto you, Boys Unaware They Are In Love Continue To Bicker Like Children, Bucky your soft spot is showing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fairy Tale Elements, Guardians of the Galaxy cameos, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Norse mythology beginning to appear, Nursery Rhymes, Slow Burn, Stardust AU/crossover, a lot of book/movie references, no explicit sexual content between Thor and Loki, steve is worthy, the ship collects lightning you know who the captain is gonna be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:27:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4818605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—</em><br/><em>Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night</em><br/><em>And watching, with eternal lids apart,</em><br/><em>Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite</em><br/>- John Keats</p><p>A Stardust AU featuring Steve Rogers as Tristran Thorn, Bucky Barnes as Yvaine, and cameos from various other Marvel characters in many other roles. Incorporating both book and movie events from Stardust, as well as a little bit of Marvel comics history/Norse pantheon myth. As characters appear in the story, the relevant tags will be added, and ratings may change!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How many miles to Babylon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brooklynboos (thelionkingsguard)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=brooklynboos+%28thelionkingsguard%29).



> I've been looking for an excuse to write this forever. And then Dis came along, and, well. Here it is. She gave it its preliminary look-over and the okay to go ahead, and so without further ado here it is for you all. Enjoy it (I am going to have a blast writing it, for sure!)

_How many miles to Babylon?_  
_Three score miles and ten._  
_Can I get there by candlelight?_  
_Aye, and back again._  
\- Traditional

The glow of candlelight was soft on the windowpane when Sarah Rogers looked out over the village of Wall. Frost crept over the glass in patterns like spiders' fingers, weaving webs of ice. Holding a penny over the flame, she heated the coin until her fingers began to sting and pressed it to the glass, creating peep-holes to watch the travellers milling in the village square by. They had been flooding in for weeks, until Mr. Stark's inn on the corner of the village square had no more rooms to let; and after that, they had begun knocking on doors. They paid for their lodgings in strange coins, vibrant spices that heated the tongue just from the smell of them, or gemstones the size of pigeon's eggs that glittered all shades of the rainbow.

The Rogers had not yet had any unusual visitors knocking on their door, but Sarah nevertheless sat hopefully on the window seat every night with a book in her lap, pretending to read, just in case. Her father kept one wary eye on her and another on the door, running his hands anxiously over his knees. He disapproved, Sarah knew, of the festival. Too many unseemly folks milling around in the square, possibly casting unseemly glances at his daughter, he insisted. At eighteen, she was "too young for that sort of attention from men," he insisted. But Sarah loved to see them anyway, in their coats of gold cloth and boots so red they seemed stitched from the petals of poppy-flowers. She could sit at the window for hours, just to watch. But when the stars began to light the square more than the oil lamps flickering above the villagers' heads, he sent Sarah to bed, drawing her curtains and closing her bedroom door behind her.

So Sarah lit her candles, heated her pennies, and watched by starlight.

As the day of the festival grew closer, she had sensed the anticipation growing in the air, pregnant with promise. The stars themselves seemed to glow brighter at night, as though turning their faces to the sleepy village to watch the events unfold. Sarah unpinned her hair carefully, allowing the loose blonde curls to settle around her face, and leant her head against the glass. The scent of spices was on the air, and Mr. Stark at the inn had thrown his door wide open, laughing and welcoming a traveller inside with open arms and a foaming mug of ale.

Sarah gathered her nightgown around her and slipped down from the windowsill. October in Wall was cold, and pressing herself against the glass any longer and giving herself a chill would do her no favours in asking her father to attend the festival tomorrow. She peeled back the quilt and blankets from her bed, about to climb in, when she heard the knock on the door, quick and quiet, as though trying to hide.

Her feet, bare against the cold flagstones, made nary a whisper as she all but flew down the stairs to the front door, flinging it open with a beaming smile.

The man in front of her was exotically handsome for Wall, with olive skin and dark curling hair, glittering dark eyes fixed on her face as a monkey chittered on his shoulder. She reached out a finger to stroke the creature's glossy furred head and laughed in delight when it reached out a small paw and shook her hand, a solemn expression on its little face. The man smiled at her evident amusement and reached out his own hand to shake.

"Good evening."

"Good evening," Sarah repeated a little breathlessly, tearing her eyes away from the monkey to look directly at her visitor instead. Her father had instilled in her some sense of manners, at least, and she wasn't about to make herself look rude in front of the first Faerie Market traveller she had ever been allowed to talk to. The man reached out and touched a dangling curl on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb over it with an expression of great interest.

"You wouldn't happen to have a room to let, would you, my dear?"

Sarah spared a glance over her shoulder for any sign of her father. He must still be in bed, otherwise he would surely have heard the knock and turned the man away. He disapproved of the festival after all. Sarah turned back to the man on the doorstep and smiled, stepping aside to allow him over the threshold.

"Of course," she said, leading him up the stairs, "right this way."

  


* * *

  


The stranger had disappeared in the morning when Sarah slipped quietly upstairs to check on him. Her bed was made the way she had left it the night before, and there wasn't even a change in the air to suggest a foreigner's presence in her bedroom overnight. Nothing apart from the small folded note, written on blue paper, tucked beneath the basin of her candle-holder on the nightstand.

 _Miss Rogers._  
Thank you for sparing me your room for tonight. Payment has been settled in your nightstand.  
Your guest

She opened the drawer of the nightstand to find a charred black candle, smelling of wax and Eastern spices that burned her nose. Picking it up and turning it in her hands, she searched the rest of the drawer for explanation but found only another note, in the same hand on the same blue paper.

 _Light me, think of where you wish to go, and close your eyes_.

The panes of Sarah's window showed no sign of the spiderwebs of frost from the night before, nor of the round little holes heated by burning pennies. Instead, the sky was a brilliant, cornflower blue, as though it were midsummer rather than autumn, and there was barely a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day, and Wall would no doubt be thrumming with activity as people prepared for the guards to open the wall gap and allow the travellers through to the festival, but wouldn't it be lovely to get something of a head start?

Jangling the few penny coins in her housecoat pocket, she rifled through her drawers for her box of matches and eagerly clutched the candle as she struck one against the tinder box. At the flare of the spark, her heart gave a little jump in her chest, anticipation welling, buoyant, between her ribs. The candle caught the flame, and in a flash of light, Sarah was gone from her bedroom and deposited in the centre of the faerie festival, still dressed only in her flimsy nightgown and a thin housecoat, feet bare.

"Eyes! Eyes!" called a crone at a stall to Sarah's right, startling her. "New eyes for old!"

Sarah pulled her coat tighter around herself, shivering in the breezy October air, and resolved to find somewhere where she could find something to wear. The stalls all around her, however, soon provided a distraction. Stopping beside one, she picked up a small crystal cat, gazing curiously at it until it blinked and yowled, in a tiny voice like the chiming of a bell. She dropped it in shock and, just like a real cat, it landed on its four paws and sniffed superciliously at her before prancing to the corner of the table and settling down to wash itself.

The market was positively thronged. It bustled with people, all of the strangers who had trickled into Wall over the past few weeks and many of the village inhabitants themselves, all crowding round stalls and conversing with one another in a clamour of a thousand different languages over which the stallholders had to shout to be heard. Mr Stark was there, having set up shop with a stall full of pastries and pies which he was selling for a tuppence each to hungry passers-by, his son with his arms wrapped around his father's legs and his anxious toddler face pressed into one of Mr. Stark's calves. Sarah waved the boy a tentative hello, but got nothing in response beyond Anthony Stark shifting his gaze away from her and towards his father shyly.

She was tempted to spend a little of her money at the faerie stalls; their food seemed so bright, full of vivid colours and flavours that Wall would never be able to produce. But everyone there, man, woman and child, knew that to touch faerie food was a mistake not to be made, and so she passed her coin to Mr. Stark in return for a cheese pastry that left a slight greasy film on her fingers and made her stomach rumble happily.

A chiming like the sound of the cat's meow made her head turn, and she approached the stall it was coming from warily, half expecting to see more prowling cats and goodness knows what other creatures stalking around the tabletop. Instead, she was met by a man with eyes so blue they were almost violet, and blond hair that crowned his head like a prince's coronet. Her heart caught in her chest when he smiled at her and held out a flower, a beautifully-wrought glass snowdrop. It chimed softly as the breeze whispered past, and Sarah carefully took it from him with trembling fingers.

"Good morning," he said, with a smile on his lips and a glimmer of faerie magic in his gaze.

"These are... are lovely," Sarah said hesitantly, holding the flower he had given her up to show what she meant. "Do you make them?"

"No, no," he answered with a laugh like the tinkling of his flowers, "they grow in a grove in my father's lands, where it is dangerous to venture and even more dangerous to come back. They look pretty, and they sound prettier. Excellent gifts for a lady. But they may also be used in certain potions and poultices, if madam is a witch...?"

"No," Sarah blurted out quickly, colouring under the laughing sweep of his eyes over her face. "Nothing as exciting as that, unfortunately. Though I always wished I could do magic. What child doesn't?"

"But a child no longer," he observed. "Why give up the dream? Especially here, where marvels are all around you..." He gestured to the crush of tents around them and stroked the translucent petals of a glass bluebell. It tinkled with a sound like the one produced when rubbing a wet fingertip around the edge of a wine glass, and the wind ruffling Sarah's hair set several others in the display to chiming in harmony.

"I couldn't. Not a touch of magic to these hands," Sarah laughed, shaking her head. The man just gave her another enigmatic smile and turned to slot a few more flowers into the gaps of his display. His ears, beneath the tousled golden crown of hair, were pointed and catlike, dusted with more light golden fur like threads of silver.

"How... how much is it?" Sarah asked, holding out two pennies.

"I could take the colour of your hair," the man answered, his expression intense. "Or perhaps all of your memories before you were three years of age. Or the hearing in your left ear, just enough so that you will no longer enjoy music, nor hear the wind as it sighs in your hair."

"I'm not sure-"

"Or," he said lightly, flicking his gaze down to the stall, "I could take a kiss, here on my cheek." He tapped the apple of his cheek with a mischievous glint in his eye, and Sarah laughed at his forwardness even as she leaned forward and pressed her lips gently to the freckled skin. His skin tasted of cocoa and cardamom, and the smell of him, magical and bright as starlight, filled her heart and the front of her mind. When she pulled back he grinned, white, slightly pointed teeth gleaming under the light, and cocked his head.

"I shall see you at sundown, Sarah Rogers."

"Thank you," she murmured, tucking the flower behind her ear, where she could hear the chiming with every step she took. She didn't think on how he knew her name; he had taken it from her, along with other things such as her heart, when she had kissed him.

  


* * *

  


The sun sinking over the hillock beyond the wall cloaked the festival in dusk, lilac and violet and blue. Sarah pressed through the crowds towards the chiming stall, where the young man with the catlike ears and the smell of magic on his skin awaited her. He held out his hand and led her gently to the woods, where she lay down on the moss and kissed him again, with burning lips and a ribcage full of stars.

He clutched her close, and pressed and arched until she sobbed, and he kissed the tears away and ran his fingers through her hair. Moonlight crowned them both in silver, king and queen of this night, and when it was over, he helped her to stand and pressed a kiss to her cheek. He struck a light seemingly from nothing but the tips of his fingers, and she held her candle to it and disappeared in a flash of light like the dying gasp of a supernova.

In weeks, perhaps, she knew. There was a warmth in her belly, and she was dizzy in the mornings, smelling nothing but orange oil and spices and cocoa and faerie in the warm, heated air of her bedroom, and there was a slight swell where nothing had been before. Her father took one look at her and knew, too; knew that there is nothing to do but wait it out, and make up a story that will hold up enough to whatever scrutiny she was placed under. Sarah rubbed her hand wonderingly over the minute curve of her stomach and thought of what the faerie man would say, if he knew.

The story became a sweetheart in the Army, a boy from out of town whom Sarah met whilst training to become a nurse. She did train to be a nurse, and became a midwife, and eventually - at the age of nineteen - in the candlelight of her bedroom with her father at the foot of the bed, tearful and wondering, delivered her baby into blistering July heat.

He came out pale, barely kicking; but his eyes opened to a blue so dark it's violet, and one ear - flat to his head, and dusted with the palest gold - showed the barest tip of a point. She wrapped him in a blanket and rocked him softly, singing nursery rhymes to his newborn ears and ignoring the tears on her own cheeks for a baby who will never know his father, and he listened, solemn as the grave, and blinked at the stars outside the window.


	2. Monday's Child

_Monday's child is fair of face,_  
_Tuesday's child is full of grace;_  
_Wednesday's child is full of woe,_  
_Thursday's child has far to go_  
\- Traditional

The Allfather lay in his chamber, awaiting the Odinsleep and its dark fingers to carry him away, and stared hard at his sons with his fading eye. He had called his children, those remaining to him at least, to his side as he felt the drag of lethargy in his bones; Loki, the youngest, angular and black-haired like a bat, with sharp eyes and a sharper heart, greedy for all being King would give him, and Baldr, sweet-faced and jovial, with a crown of lamplight over his reddish hair and tears like crystals in the corners of his eyes. They, the living, stood on his left; the dead, Vali and Viđarr, on his right, still and silent as stone carvings.

"Father," Baldr spoke, his voice trembling slightly, "we are all here, as requested."

"All but one," Loki reminded his brother, eyes on the window, staring down at the realm of Asgard spreading out, jewelled fields and rolling silver skies, beneath the castle's guilded walls. Odin never took his eye off Loki, never stopped watching the trickster for more of his mischief - for that hungry, greedy creature to burst out of him and manipulate those weak enough to allow it into granting his every whim. Loki turned back to him, green eyes guileless, and he spoke softly, his voice pleading.  
"Father, can we not wait-"

"Thor was banished, brother," Vali interrupted in his deep, somnolent voice from their father's opposite side. He narrowed his eyes at Loki. "As well you know."

Loki ignored him, stepping closer to their father's bed, his voice low and urgent. "Father, you are growing weaker as we speak. We were all born to be kings, but Thor-"

"Was not worthy!" Odin cut him off, eye still traversing his sons' faces, both whey-pale. Loki had always been fair, fair and slender and weak, using his silver tongue to manipulate the world around himself; Baldr, simply pale with grief. Frigga's darling, the youngest of their natural sons... Odin fixed Loki with his sternest gaze, holding out his hand. In a whistle of rushing air, their brother's hammer flew into his hand, vibrating and crackling with power. Lightning flashed outside the window, and all four sons, living and dead, looked to the sky out of force of habit. None expected to see their eldest brother come striding through, or to hear his laughing, booming voice once more echoing through the halls of Asgard. But some hoped.

Pressing his lips to the hammer, Odin spoke, voice thin and slow: "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor, to rule over the realm of Asgard."

"Father?" Loki asked, confusion knitting his brows. Baldr stepped closer to the bed, his hand outstretched to rest over his father's.

Odin closed his eyes with a soft exhale, succumbing at last to the Odinsleep as the sky crackled and roared with thunder. The hammer burned, gold light tracing a delicate triquetra in the burnished metal; it vibrated in the air for a moment as the storm outside raged, peals of thunder like the crashing of giants' armour before the hammer flew, out of the window and streaking into the stars. Both living brothers raced to the balcony, watching it pass far out of their sight before an ear-splitting boom almost deafened them both and the sky erupted into burning, shards of light and colour like the opening of the Bifrost. They were blind to everything but the lights in the sky and the falling, in a glittering, streaming tail of sparks, of a lone star.

Loki turned on his heel and stormed out with a muttered curse. Baldr, hanging by the window, looked up at the crackling sky and smiled.

"Do not worry, brother. I shall find your hammer."  
  


* * *

  
Steven Rogers, born on the fourth day of the month of July, had just passed his eighteenth birthday when the star fell. Not that he was aware; as we all know, Wall has nothing to do with the land of faerie beyond the higgledy-piggledy barrier of stone and wood fencing the two worlds. In fact, he was just beginning to clear the shop floor to close for the night when a customer stepped through the door and rang the silver bell on the counter for service.

His head lifted, startled from his reverie by the sound of the bell, and he quickly straightened and attempted to tease his crooked shop-boy's apron into order before clearing his throat.

"Miss Potts. What can I get for you today?"

"I've a list from my mother." Virginia Potts, although she would never show it, was disappointed to see Steven on duty this afternoon. They had grown up together and attended the village school together, and Steven had always been the boy to stop the older boys - namely Anthony Stark - pulling on her pigtails during the recesses between lessons. But Anthony's pigtail-pulling had progressed to shy, earnest kisses stolen behind the cow-sheds on her father's farm, and hand-holding at the May day parades, and it was Anthony whom Virginia had been hoping to see behind the counter, with his wicked smile and wickeder eyes.

"I see." He took the paper from her hand, scanning the list of ingredients quickly. He began pulling items off the shelves and depositing them carefully on the counter; bags of rice, tins of sardines, a bottle of cochineal and bags of sugar. Steven looked up at her with earnest, wide blue eyes, and offered - awkward, as was his way every time she entered the shop - a comment on this week's list:

"Rice pudding, perhaps?"

"To stave off winter chills." Virginia smiled, though her eyes grew pitying watching him struggle with the heavy bag of potatoes next on her list. Steven was short, with the physique of a malnourished child, and it was a mystery that he had managed to retain his position in the shop for any length of time. However, he had his pride, and he refused Virginia's help with a blush that stained him red from the glowing tips of his ears down beneath his collar, teeth gritted.

"I can manage, thank you, Miss Potts. You shouldn't be straining yourself."

"I don't mind-"

"Forgive me, Miss Potts, but I do." Steven hefted the potatoes into a basket for her and carefully picked it up. "Might I help you carry these home?"

She softened, threading one delicate arm through his. Steven hated to be pitied, so she allowed him to carry the basket - struggling though he visibly was - and followed him out of the shop and along the village lane towards the outlying farms. Her father's was one of the largest in the area, with a full dairy herd and several large coops of chickens to provide eggs; Virginia's family in fact provided Stark and Son's with many of the cartons of eggs that they sold in their shop, and it had been when Anthony arrived to collect the morning's supply several months ago that he had caught Virginia in his arms behind the cow shed and pressed a hasty kiss to her lips.

Decorum had said that she should have slapped him, or at the very least given him a piece of her mind for his forwardness, and so she did; but even he knew that she was doing so only for decorum's sake. She glanced down at Steven, flushed and beginning to break a sweat from his exertions, and sighed quietly. His attempts to court her were very much like Steven himself, sweet and shy, but not entirely welcomed, by her nor any of the other girls in the village. Rumours had abounded the year Steven was born, her mother told her, of a faerie liaison the night of the Festival the previous year; of a strange wind, smelling of gold and spices and berries, blowing through the village as a baby's first cries could be heard from the Rogers' cottage; of an owl that hooted with a strangely sad, human tone to its voice from the rafters of their barn. Virginia believed none of them, obviously, but Steven had suffered from the superstition anyway.

Faerie was rightly regarded with suspicion in Wall, and the folk more so. She shook herself. Nonsense, the lot of it, and he was a shop-boy. Nothing remotely dangerous at all.

He glanced up at her as though knowing the source of her thoughts, and his mouth set for a moment before looking away.  
"I expect Mr. Stark will return on Thursday with the rest of the items you ordered. If you would like, they can be delivered to the house."

"I couldn't ask Tony to do that-"

His eyes, sad and knowing, met hers for a moment before his shoulders sloped dejectedly. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind, Miss Potts. He visits the farm every morning for eggs anyway. I'd have thought that it would be no trouble for him to drop off the rest of your items."

"Thank you." She smiled at him, and received a half-quirk of the lips in response.

The silence dragged out between them uncomfortably before she caught sight of a falling star streaking across the sky.  
"Oh, look! A falling star!"

Steven's eyes were following its descent across the horizon when he spoke. "It's lovely." He turned to her and quirked his lips again, a wry grin. "You... I - that is -"

Virginia smiled sadly at him, patting his arm with one hand. "Steven, I... I'm sorry. I understand what's going on, but... I can't. I'm all but betrothed to Tony already."

Steven sighed, visibly deflating. He seemed even smaller beneath the overfilled basket, staring at the bag of potatoes miserably. "You know, for you, I would have found that star. I'd have crossed the wall and brought you it back, and anything else you wanted."

"I know," she said quietly, staring at the empty space where the star had fallen.

The night was the same colour as his eyes; such a dark midnight blue as to be tinged with purple. At that moment, a gust of wind blew from the east, from Faerie - so strong it rattled the windows of the village, spinning the weathercocks until they clanked and groaned in protest. The fires of the lamps belched, the flames twisting in knots of greens and scarlets, showers of sparks exploding inside the heavy glass bowls, and Steven Rogers was filled, inexplicably, with a lion's courage, as though he had swallowed the sparks whilst breathing in the faerie wind.

"Let me bring you it, then, as a gift. The star." His eyes were glossy, wet and blue, but his mouth was set determinedly. "I'll find it for you and bring it back. I always wanted..." Looking down at himself, he sighed, his voice growing hard, almost bitter. " _More_. Than this, anyway."

"As a gift, then. You can bring me the star, and I will see if my father will agree to a courtship between us. Tony hasn't yet stated his intentions either, so if you come back soon..."

Steven nodded. The wind smelled of strawberries and smelting precious metals as it blew around them again, whipping at the hem of Virginia's dress, and there seemed to be tiny lights blinking over his hair, the dark purplish-blue of his eyes sparkling like twin gems.

The wind had lightened him. He felt full of gold, liquid and shining, and hummed along to the music of the stars. Virginia's eyes blazed in the moonlight, bluer than oceans, and her skin was starlight, seeming to glow against his eyes like a lamp. The road between the shop and the Potts farm seemed shorter, the burden in his arms lighter; the wind had filled him with something strange, a sort of power perhaps, or magic. He remembered his mother's tales at his bedside as a child, of faerie markets and princes crowned in gold and the chiming of flowers that sounded like crystal bells ringing to the stars.

Steven saw Virginia to the door, passing her father the basket of shopping items, and gave Virginia a soft smile goodbye with his eyes flashing like amethysts.

Her father closed the door, shaking his head.

"Faerie-touched, that lad. No doubt about it."


	3. Star light, star bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a roll with this fic, somebody stop me.
> 
> Thanks again to Dis for her insight!

_Star light, star bright_  
_First star I see tonight_  
 _I wish I may, I wish I might_  
 _Have the wish I wish tonight_  
\- Traditional

Wall was quiet, lamps flickering gently inside their glass bulbs, lighting the top of her son's hair as he made his way down the road. Sarah glanced at the fireplace in the corner of the room, memory melting the warm room around her to the stifling, burning heat of eighteen years ago. Steven had arrived after a push that felt like the earth moving beneath her, that made her scream and sob into the night air, clinging to her father's hand so tight she feared she would break it. He had been such a quiet baby, barely a whimper, so quiet she almost forgot he was there sometimes. But he was his father's son, truly. Careful blue-violet eyes, always watching the world around him, never missing a thing. She had cradled him to her breast, wrapped him in blankets, and sung to him through her tears. Her father had built him a rocking crib from the wood of their apple tree in the garden, and it was into this that she settled him to sleep, watching his wide eyes take in the world as he was seeing it.

He had been a beautiful baby, even with his oddities. But despite his unusual heritage, he suffered from all too human ailments; a twisted spine that never seemed to fully straighten, and lungs that rattled in winter no matter how many times Sarah spoon-fed him cough syrups and herbal remedies from the pharmacy. And he was small, lithe and slim, not like the stocky natives of Wall she had seen. His differences made him, like she herself, ostracised from the community: the boys in the schoolyard didn't like to play with him, citing strange behaviours, and he came home with blood on his collar and split lips and cheeks more often than not. Sarah had always told him that he was more special than he knew; she only wished he could believe it.

She padded quietly down the stairs as he let himself in, rebraiding her hair loosely for bed. Steven smiled at her, already setting to boiling the kettle for her hot water bottle; she gently took it from his hand and sat him at the kitchen table, eyes wary on his. He gazed back at her with the sparks in his eyes she remembered from his father, when the breeze whispered around them and the stars fell like dust over his skin, that night after the faerie market. In that moment, he was all Other, with his violet eyes and the sheen of moonlight on his skin as though he'd bathed in silver, and she shuddered silently. Something was coming on the wind; there was a change in Wall that night, and her son was at the centre of it.

Pushing his hair - too long, and in need of a cut - behind his ear, she smiled softly.  
"Were you walking Miss Potts home again?"

"Yes." He turned away, busying himself with the kettle again. He pulled her hot water bottle out from the cabinet beneath the sink and filled it for her, capping it tightly before passing it back. "There. I know how you hate for your feet to be cold at night, Ma."

"You take such good care of me, Steven," she said quietly, her eyes beginning to mist over. "I love you so much, darling."

"I know, Ma." He smiled. "Do you want cocoa before bed as well, or-"

"Steven," she cut across him, setting the hot water bottle down on the kitchen table and stepping closer to look him directly in the eye, "What aren't you telling me?"

"I walked Virginia home after closing tonight," he said quietly, his confident demeanour evaporating. "She... is being courted by Anthony Stark." He sighed. "I expected as much, from the amount of time it seems to take him to do a simple run for eggs and milk up to the farm, and from how he talks about her at the shop, but... I had hoped that perhaps it wasn't so... reciprocal. I wouldn't expect her to be interested, not in me, but..."

"Steven Rogers, you-" His mother grasped his chin and forced him to look at her. "You listen to me, now. You have to stop comparing yourself to all those other boys at every turn. You are your own person, and as far as I'm concerned, you're the best of them. You're certainly the best man in my life." He smiled, soft and sweet and shy, and she wondered how on earth Virginia Potts could run after that Anthony Stark when all the treasure in the world was staring her in the face. But Sarah was a mother, and therefore biased. "You have no idea how special you are, my darling."

"Ma, I appreciate the compliment, but I'm no better than anyone else here. There's nothing special about me." He shook his head, small smile turning wry. "And the moment I start believing there is... that's how bullies start out, Ma."

"If you have a single bone in your body capable of bullying someone, Steven Rogers, the doctors have yet to find it. And with the amount of time you spend in their offices," she sighed, a fond smile on her lips, "they should've done so by now."

He chuckled, shaking his head. "I suppose that's true."

"You don't know how special you are, sweetheart. You... Your differences come from somewhere, darling. You're not like all the other boys-"

"You don't have to tell me that, Ma."

"You shush and listen. Steven, there's... You know, it'd be easier just to show you." She took his hand and led him upstairs to her own bedroom, where she unlocked the top drawer of her nightstand and passed him a candle, neat and black with a charred wick, wrapped in paper, and a tiny glass flower so delicate it must have been wrought by faerie hands. Steven looked up at her with wide eyes, uncomprehending, and she sat down on the edge of the bed, taking a deep breath.

"Before you were born," she began, gazing at the flower in his hands, remembering violet eyes and wicked, curving smiles full of magic and promise, "there was a faerie market, a festival, on the other side of the Wall. Once every nine years. It came on All Hallows' Eve, and it stayed a day and a night, and travellers would come from all over to attend. Even the villagers, when the gate in the wall was opened. The year before you were born, I went, and I met a stallholder there... A man of the Folk. Beautiful, with enchanting eyes and a voice like silver, and he gave me that," she touched the flower with one fingertip, "so I bought it from him. He became your father, Steven.

"I had you the year after, and the night you arrived it was like Faerie had crossed the wall. Blinding hot, smelling like juniper and orange blossom and iron on the air, and you arrived quiet as a lamb with those - with those violet eyes, just like his. And he sent you something, I'm sure. I'm sure it was him. Only someone from Faerie could make the village feel like that in midsummer. He left you something on the doorstep. That candle."

Her son stared at the candle in his hands before looking up at his mother. "A candle?"

She pulled out a box of matches and settled them beside herself on the bed.

Steven unrolled the paper from the candle and smoothed it out with shaking hands. " _If ever you want to find me again, light this candle-_ "

" _And think of me_." Sarah finished, her eyes wet. "That's how these candles work." She smoothed her hand over his ruffled hair, rubbing his cheekbone with her thumb. "You're eighteen, darling. It's been a long time to have kept this from you."

"Ma, I... Don't, Ma. Don't feel guilty."

"Steven, I..."

"No, Ma. He's not... You couldn't tell me. I understand. Grandpa told me the story about the man in the Navy." He glanced at the candle again, deliberating. "But... but this will take me to him? To my father?"

"It'll take you wherever you want to go, Steven." She looked at him with eyes as old as the world, and he realised she knew. He wouldn't use it to see his father. There was somewhere else he had to go first.

"May I light it?"

Sarah struck a match and held it out, touching it to the end of the candle. Steven held onto it tightly, thinking hard about the falling star, his face screwed up in concentration. The candle felt hot between his hands, then hotter, and suddenly a light like the bursting of the universe broke beneath his eyelids and he flew.  


* * *

  
He landed in a rather undignified manner in a large crater of rock, somewhere distinctly unfamiliar. A groan alerted him to the presence of someone else split seconds before a small rock impacted the back of his head and a sharp, tearful voice told him to "Fuck off!"

He spun around sharply, blinking to adjust his eyes to the darkness around him after the brilliance of his exit from Wall. The stars worked to faintly illuminate the ground, pitted and grooved from the impact of the star falling, and the weak sobbing noise continued to his right. A faint light was glowing in the corner of the crater, the direction from which another, somewhat larger, rock came hurtling towards him.

"I said fuck off!"

A man's voice, raw and gulping, as though it had just been crying. "Fuck off and leave me alone!"

Steven approached warily, holding his hands up placatingly. "I won't hurt you, I swear. I'm just looking for something."

The nearer he got, the clearer the glow became, and soon he could see a young man, stark naked, curled into a ball against the wall of the crater, another rock held menacingly in his hand. His eyes were reddened and raw, glaring up at him with a distinct aura of loathing. The glow seemed to be coming from him; he glittered as he sat there, one leg awkwardly extended in front of him, and as Steven stepped closer he threw the rock as hard as he could and only just missed Steven's head.

"Hey! Please don't throw any more stones," Steven pleaded, his hands raised, "I'm not looking for a fight. I'm looking for a star. It fell a little while ago, and we're in a crater so it must be nearby."

The young man stared, hard, at him for a long few minutes before throwing back his head and laughing, sarcastic and sharp-edged and mean. "Real fucking funny. Ha, ha, ha. Where's the goddamn star, my ass."

Steven halted, bristling at being laughed at. He started looking around on the floor of the crater for the star, trying to see if there were any smaller pits in the ground that could give him a clue as to where it landed. The young man in front of him kept hefting rocks, forcing him to dodge and skitter out of the way, peppering his missile assault with demands for Steven to _Fuck off!_ and _Leave me alone!_ interspersed with quiet hitching sobs.

"No, really." He snarled. "You're fuckin' hysterical. You in comedy?" He threw another rock. "I said fuck off! You deaf as well as stupid?"

"No, not until you tell me - wait." He carefully edged closer, his eyes on the other man's extended leg. "You're hurt, let me take a look at that-"

"No! Get outta here!"

"You're injured, you need to have that seen to - will you please stop throwing rocks at me so I can check your leg out?" He snapped, crouching down beside him to run his fingers carefully over the pale, shimmering skin. It felt smooth as cream, lightly hairy, and there was a definite and obvious break in his shin bone, the flesh around it tender and swollen. Steven pressed gently, trying to see whether he could set it, and the young man cried out in pain, his eyes filling with tears again. Eyes which, Steven noticed, were a beautiful, delicate shade of almost robin's egg blue, on the border between blue and grey. They were as bright as the rest of him, glossed and dazed by pain and anger as they were.

The man swiped at Steven with one fist, jaw clenched, nostrils flared in anger. "I told you, _leave me alone_!"

"You really should-"

"FUCK OFF!"

" _Fine!_ Fine. Suffer. I only wanted to help. But where's the star? Did you see it?"

"Did I see it?" the young man repeats, finger pressed to his jaw in a mockery of thinking. His eyes glittered angrily as he glowered at Steven, spitting the words out in a fury. "Yeah, I fuckin' saw it. I saw it up there, completely mindin' its own business when a fuckin' hammer, a _fucking hammer_ ," he jabbed a furious finger at a large, square-headed hammer lying innocently on the ground a few feet away from him, "flew outta nowhere and knocked it on its ass ready to be yelled at by this _magical flying moron_ _right here_!"

That made Steven pause in his search of the floor area for anything remotely otherworldly-looking. It took several moments for the words to sink in before: "Wait... _You're_ the star? _You're_ the _star_? But-"

"And the genius finally fuckin' figures it out! Now get the fuck out before I throw this hammer at _you_!"

Steven sat down heavily on the rocky floor, head spinning.


	4. Some Devils

_Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail;_  
 _A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,_  
 _a nut, a cherry-stone;_  
\- William Shakespeare

Those who attended the All Hallows' Eve festivals were not the only wondrous inhabitants of faerie. Seiđr sparkled, golden and fluid, in the branches of the trees in spring, winding its gossamer threads around their spindly limbs to make buds burst into flowering. Many of the folk practised seiđr in its myriad forms; three such were the Hydra, the three remaining heads of a coven of warlocks once powerful and now reduced to aged bodies in a crumbling ruin of a palace. The Aesir, current rulers, golden-headed princes with eyes like flashes of lightning and voices like rolls of thunder, had conquered the giants under whom Hydra had served as court warlocks. Perhaps they wished again to rule. Perhaps all they wished for was the heart of the star which would grant them back their youth, their strength, and their magic.

One of the warlocks stalked through the open door, a stoat in his hand, its delicate neck viciously wrung until the head flopped limply against his fingers. He skinned it and shirked the naked body out of its fur, throwing it down on the table and calling to his coven brothers in a husky, half-dead voice. They came, eyes colourless as glass, with obsidian knives that glittered in the flickering firelight of the hearth and flashed onto the blank surface of the wall mirror, to read its entrails. Such were the preliminaries of their seiđr.

"A star," one said, his accent thick and foreign even to faerie; a voice steeped in rock and salt, mountain ranges and wolves - and worse - baying at the moon from the depths of a forest thick as night. He smiled at the others, stretching the guts for them to read between bloodied hands. "Newly fallen, and quite the beauty. Good heart, and strong." His smile slackened as he read further. "Injured and cowed, but fallen none the less."

"Who will go?" the eldest asked, his voice strong despite his age, rough hands on the animal's splayed limbs. His brothers fixed him with sharp gazes, knowing his propensity for tricks and sleight of hand in their contests. The mirror glimmered in the light of the fire. Nevertheless, it was agreed that they would draw straws - or organs - for the honour, and it was decided when a kidney, the liver and the heart were all plucked from the small body.

The eldest held the tiny heart between finger and thumb, a wet jewel, smile sharp as the knives. "I. With the heart."

"How?"

"The chariot." He glanced around the room, out of the window and towards the stable where their chariot was housed. The giants had given the coven its name when one of the ancient members, a warlock with devilish eyes that burned like Greek fire and seiđr so strong he could move mountains, had slain one of the fabled beasts, said to have a hundred heads or more at the time of the encounter, and mounted one head on the front of his chariot. The very same chariot which rested in the coven's dilapidated stable, beneath a tarpaulin and a layer of matted, half-mouldy hay.

"You will need years," his brother told him, a cackle on his lips. Millennia were but blinks of the eye to them, in truth, but it was no kinder to their forms for it. Gravity acts on all people equally; folk and fae alike. (The star could attest to that, were he present.) Skin sags, limbs weaken.

The eldest only nodded imperiously. His brothers sighed, and the youngest hobbled on limbs as old as the world to a ramshackle chest of drawers in the corner of the room to fetch a box. Three pieces of twine, all carefully knotted, held the lid on; when the box was retrieved, each warlock untied his own string and the box was opened. Something glittered golden in the bottom.

"Not much left," the youngest sighed, his hollow gaze hungry. The eldest rolled his eyes and snapped back:

"All the better that we've found another, then, yes?"

The golden thing tried to avoid his hand as he swiped for it, catching it between his fingers where it streamed, silver and dripping, until he thrust it into his mouth, quicksilver clinging stickily to his lips. A shiver passed through the whole nine realms of the universe, and a young man stood before the coven; a young man, to all intents and purposes, everywhere but in his reflection in the great mirror on the wall. There, he was as old and cruel as he had ever looked. Mr Wilde would later use this very man as inspiration for a famous book; Mr Wilde being, of course, faerie-blooded himself.

"When I return with its heart," the eldest said, sliding the largest obsidian knife into a leather sheath at his belt, "there will be enough for all of us."

"A star," the wolf-voiced one said, his eyes envious on his brother's face.

"A star," the youngest echoed.

"A _fallen_ star," said the eldest, with flashing eyes and a thumb caressing the handle of the knife at his belt.  
  


* * *

  
The star, blissfully oblivious of all of this, was currently sat on the ground in the crater, continuing to glower at Steven as though he were the cause of all his problems. In all fairness, the star himself considered that to be the case; Steven, however, would protest his innocence, if the star would listen. He was instead investigating the hammer, lying in a smaller crater of its own in the centre of their bowl, and prodding it warily with one finger. It crackled ominously, sparks of gold and silver seeming to leap off the metal head and fizzle in his hair like static.

The star continued to mutter blackly under his breath as he watched Steven poke and prod at the hammer; laughing when a particularly strong crackle made him yelp and pull back his hand, sucking his finger to take the shock out. Steven glared at him, hurt, and the star laughed louder, pointedly and rude, right into his face.

"It's not my fault it knocked you out of the sky, you know."

"It's never anyone's fault, is it? Except someone had to go throwin' it up there, and you've got the blond hair and the flyin' of the moron who usually goes swinging this kinda thing around down pat. Lordin' it up amongst the clouds like he owns the fuckin' place-"

"I'm not a moron!"

"Could'a fooled me!" the star sniffed, and reached out to steady himself on a large rock as he tried to push himself upright. His injured leg buckled beneath him and he collapsed heavily to the ground with a shout of pain, making Steven look up in concern.

"Are you-"

"I told you to back the fuck off and leave me alone! Read my fuckin' lips, pal: LEAVE. ME. ALONE!"

Steven felt anger beginning to simmer under his skin again, and he yanked the hammer off the ground to brandish it at the star. Lightning arced and spat above his head as he swung it, and flashed to slam, in a crackle of burning electricity that made his hair stand on end and filled the crater with the smell of ozone, into the ground inches from where the star was sitting. Steven yelped and dropped it like it had burned him; the star rounded on him with eyes full of fear and anger, and yelled: "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ABOUT?!"

"I - I didn't know it would do that!" Steven gasped, staring at his hands.

"Oh, yeah, sure. You didn't know that the hammer that's been givin' you shocks for the past half hour might have some kind of electric goin' through it, right, sure. So you swing it at someone and then act surprised when FUCKIN' LIGHTNING almost BURNS ME ALIVE!" He was shaking, his face pale, an accusatory finger pointing right at Steven's face. "You're fuckin' crazy, you put that thing down and you leave it there and don't - and don't do that again-"

Steven dropped down beside him, his hands frantic over the star's shoulders and his injured leg. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry - are you alright-"

"Don't touch me!"

Steven sighed and sat back on his heels. "Fine. Fine. But... no. Never mind."

The star watched him suspiciously for a moment before his expression softened minutely. "What? What'd'ya want?"

Steven sighed, twisting his fingers anxiously in his lap. "I was going to ask if I could... I'm supposed to bring back the fallen star to show my... to show the woman I love. I was going to ask, since you don't want to move from here, if I could maybe... Just take a piece of your hair, to show her. To prove that you're real."

The star looked affronted. "I look fuckin' not-real to you?"

"No, I didn't mean it that way-"

"Forget real and not real, you got some fuckin' weird kind of... of thing for hair, or somethin'? You're not gonna keep it in your pillow and kiss it goodnight or somethin', are you?"

"What? No-"

"Don't look at _me_ like that, I ain't the one askin' a stranger for a piece of their hair for fuck-only-knows-what!"

Steven was almost tempted to pick up the hammer again, but instead he settled down beside the star and spread out his jacket to sit down. He pulled the waxy, charred black stub of the candle out of his pocket and held it out to the star, his eyes hopeful.  
"If you come with me, just until we get home, I'll give you this."

"A candle? I'm a star, buddy, I make my own light. It's kind of my job."

"It's a travelling candle-"

"How did _you_ get a Babylon candle?" the star gasped, making a grab for it. Steven quickly tucked it back into the pocket of his trousers and fixed the star with a level gaze.

"My father left it to me. I was hoping that maybe, if you came with me, I could give it to you as a way to say thank you, and then you'd be able to get back home. I'm not sure I could get you there any other way."

"Who says I need your help to get home anyway?" the star sniffed, but his eyes were on Steven's hand in his pocket, and it was obvious to both of them that he was only trying to save face. Steve grinned.

"Well, if you don't want it, I can always light it up now and go back-"

The star hesitated before visibly swallowing his pride and blurting out, "Wait! Wait. I'll... I'll come with you. If you give me the candle."

"After. After, and then it's yours, I swear."

The star sighed heavily in acquiescence. "Fine. Now gimme a hand up, can't hardly stand on my own."

Steven pulled him up to stand, and found that he fit snugly under the star's armpit when he leaned heavily on him to take the weight off his injured leg. Steven wrapped a gentle arm around his waist for support, and got a "Don't go tryin' nothin'!" for his trouble, although the star didn't pull away and he almost thought he could see the tiniest glimmer of a smile playing at the corner of the star's plush curved lips.


	5. Of Jack and His Brother

_I'll tell you a story  
 _About Jack a Nory;_  
 _And now my story's begun._  
 _I'll tell you another_  
 _Of Jack and his brother,_  
 _And now my story is done.__  
\- Traditional

Loki scowled at the river, swollen with rain and threatening to burst its banks, in front of him. Here the hammer trail went cold; the scent of burning metal he had been following had been washed away by the river, and the soothsayer was of even less use. His own runes - glass and dragonbone, and currently missing - had never directed him wrongly before; but these, given him by the soothsayer and supposedly enchanted with an ancient seiđr no one in living memory knew or could replicate, told him nothing but gibberish.

Staring at the shrivelled old man with cold green eyes, the cogs turned in his mind. He hadn't seen hide nor hair of Baldr or his men since leaving the castle. If he were correctly following the trail, he should have had his younger brother on his trail the whole time. How interesting, then, that a new soothsayer had appeared to lead him across the realm in the hunt for the hammer. A new soothsayer with a flickering voice and trembling hands, and runes that told him nothing. He smiled. The soothsayer, trembling with nerves between two of Loki's men, gave him a hesitant, shaky smile in response. Loki bowed graciously and offered the soothsayer his runes.

"Please, read them for me. Evidently, there are magics so old even I cannot understand. As they are your runes, surely you can read them best."

"Very well, your Highness," the soothsayer agreed, taking the runes from Loki's hand and closing his eyes. Loki watched carefully as he threw them in the air - and saw the briefest flash of gold flickering along the soothsayer's fingertips before he caught them, opening his eyes with a wide smile. The familiar scent of burning metal filled the air, intense - and artificial. _Ah_. Loki smiled in response, raising his eyebrows curiously.

"And? Where are we to head now?"

"West, my lord. The hammer lies west."

Loki smiled, his dragon's smile with sharp teeth and fiery eyes. "How interesting." He reached in the pocket of his cloak and pulled out his own runes, stolen by the soothsayer the moment he had taken him into service. As impatient as he had been for this moment, he had to tread carefully. Otherwise Baldr would learn of what happened, the soothsayer would be dead for nothing, and his brother would be even closer to the hammer than he undoubtedly already was with Loki so helpfully waylaid.

He kept his eyes open, fixed on the man's pale face, as he asked his question and threw the runes high, holding out his hand. They landed in a jumble and he read them carefully, his smile only growing.

"Isn't it fascinating," he said, his voice laced with anger despite his pleasant smile, "that my runes are telling me very different? My runes, it would seem, are telling me that you are guiding me wrong." He narrowed his eyes. The soothsayer paled even more, his limbs trembling where the guards held him immobile. Loki cocked his head playfully onto one shoulder, his eyes scorching, tongue bitter, spitting out caustic words like spells.  
 "Care to ask them yourself? Or should I just have you executed as a traitor now, and spare us both the bother?"

He laughed. The man of course protested his innocence. Loki neither listened nor cared. He would die first, for having come between Loki and the hammer for so long. The protection Baldr had got from their mother's magic as a child, however, would necessitate a slower and more careful approach. The necessary tools and supplies were not yet in Loki's hands. But they would be.

He gave the order. His men jumped to follow it.

Sighing heavily, he turned away and threw the runes again.

"So. Where do we head?"  
  


* * *

  
At the star's behest, Steven picked the hammer up and stuffed it into his bag, taking it with them in case of roadside attacks. Steven had never been subjected to highwaymen or robbers on the other side of the wall, but his quiet village was just that - quiet. Nary a criminal to be found; it was in the larger cities, with their sprawling streets and dark alleyways that one heard of unsavoury comings and goings. The hammer crackled at his back warningly, sending small jolts of electricity through the fabric of his bag, but he ignored it completely. Instead he focused on trying to help the star to climb the sides of the crater, trying to push him up with both hands under his bottom.

The star seemed more affronted than ever.

"First you're wantin' to take my hair for under your fuckin' pillow and now you're tryin'a cop a feel?" He lashed out with his good foot, kicking Steven away rather more harshly than necessary. This had the unfortunate consequence of making him fall down the side of the crater again and land heavily on his already broken leg, with nothing short of a scream of agony and tears bursting to his eyes again. He cursed a blue streak as Steven picked himself up and warily crossed over to help him to his feet.

"Go away!"

"Look, if we don't get out of here, we'll never get back to Virginia on time. And for someone who's so worried about robbers on the roads at night, you seem more than happy to be a sitting duck right here! Now shut up and let me help you." It was the most assertive Steven had been with the star as yet, and there was a glimmer of amusement in the star's eyes as he gruffly nodded and used Steven's shoulder to haul himself up. His leg buckled almost instantly, and Steven bent down to inspect the splint he had put on it earlier. Splint and leg were both in a miserable condition.

"We need to find you something to ride. You can't walk on that."

"Oh, ya think?" the star hissed back, narrowing his eyes. He rubbed his hands through his hair. "I'm... sorry. It hurts, and... I'm scared." His eyes were large and liquid blue as he blinked at Steven then, tears edging along the line of his lashes. Steven smiled gently and carefully helped him walk over to the shallowest corner of the crater.

"Here, if we can get you up here then we'll be on level ground again and I can look for a village or somewhere where I can find you a horse." He didn't add that he would likely have to steal it; there was nowhere near enough money in his pocket for more than a crust of bread and perhaps some cheese, a mug of ale between them if they were lucky. He shinned up the side himself, scraping his knees painfully against the coarse rock, and then helped to half-drag the star up after him. Before long they were both standing - the star with assistance in the form of Steven's shoulder - and looking down at the hole the star had left during his landing, and Steven patted the hammer in his bag absent-mindedly.

"We had better get going. Will you be alright if we walk-"

"Just go," the star snapped, wincing in pain. He glanced sideways at the human who stood, still staring at him, for long moments before his face hardened and he nodded grimly.

"Fine. But you've got to keep up."

The star was soon accusing Steven of deliberately walking fast to cause him as much pain as possible. Steven insisted he wasn't that petty (and added, in his head, an _unlike some people_ ), and continued to stalk through the forest until he found a clearing. It was there that he settled the star against a tree, unrolled his coat, and lay down to sleep. Within moments, his snores had begun to break the still air of the clearing. Beside him the star sat, sulking, for a long time, as the light of his brothers and sisters in the sky began to fade and the sun started to wash the horizon pink and purple with breaking dawn. Daybreak, however, saw his head slowly fall onto his shoulder, and then onto Steven's chest as he lay, curled around the human, to sleep.

The pair of them slept most of the day away. For the star, of course, that was natural. Stars do not come out during the day, after all. But Steven was so tired after the exertion of dragging the star out of the crater and through the woods to their current spot that he also remained deeply asleep throughout the daylight hours.

The star awoke first, as dusk began to fall. Warm air was gusting against his cheek, and he jolted awake to find a horse, silver and shimmering, blinking at him with huge, warm brown eyes. It was a beautiful creature, with fetlocks the colour of starlight and a strong, aristocratic nose whuffling gently as he hesitantly rubbed a palm over it. The horse nudged him gently and something ruffled the mess of dark hair on his head; a horn, pure and clear as glass, long and spiralled. He smiled, delighted, and continued to stroke its nose, gazing at it in awe. A unicorn.

The unicorn carefully nudged him again, lowering itself to its forelegs to allow him to clamber onto its back. He patted its neck gratefully and tangled his fingers in the flowing mane; the fine hairs felt like silk around his hands, and it got to its feet and cantered away with a gait like liquid, like flying.  
  


* * *

  
The Chariot Inn was not, in truth, an inn.

The warlock had reached the crossroads and found a dilapidated grain silo, built perhaps a hundred years or more before; a grain silo which would suit his purpose perfectly. Seiđr, green and acrid with brimstone, flowed over the silo and transformed it, like a child opening a pop-up book, into a sprawling inn, rooms and wings of the building stretching with creaks of wood and stone. The roof, thatched with hay, was added last, and the warlock stepped through the door to light a fire in the grate, ignoring the spots of age on his hands. This would be where he would wait for the star as ordered by his brothers.

Glancing out of the leaded windowpanes, he caught sight of a silver glimmering in the far distance heralding the star's arrival. He stepped outside to welcome the star in, surprised to see a young man - stocky, but pale and weak with pain, barely a glimmer to the expanse of milky skin in front of him - naked, on the back of a unicorn. That explained the glow, given that the star was in such a useless state. He would have to sort that out before bringing the heart back to his brothers; such a pitiful heart as this wouldn't even be worth the effort of carving it out. Letting the lone traveller in, he settled the star at a table and placed a mug of steaming mead in front of it, faking concern.

"Good grief, you're in something of a state, aren't you?"

The star's eyes were wet with tears as it looked up at him. "Thanks," it responded, clearly offended. Stars were prickly creatures, he remembered, proud and unwilling to suffer fools. The warlock laughed softly.

"I meant that you've arrived at my inn at around midnight, on the back of a horse with neither saddle nor bridle, and in... an interesting state of undress."

The star looked down at itself and blushed an intense, beautiful shade of red. The film of tears over its eyes grew thicker and it shielded its modesty from his eyes with its hands, a droplet rolling down its cheek to patter on its thigh. He felt the stirrings of desire deep in his body and forced himself not to smile, not to weaken the creature more by frightening it. Tears were almost as valuable as hearts, though significantly more difficult to collect. But their properties were aphrodisiacal, intoxicating in the very best of ways.

"I'm sorry-" it sobbed.

"Sshhhh," the warlock said kindly, rubbing its shoulder with a coarse hand. Quietly filling the weak body with seiđr, watching the green ropes knot around its leg and press needling fingers beneath the skin to knit the bone together. The star flinched for a moment before flexing its toes and then staring up at the warlock in shock.

"How did you do that?" it gasped, staring up at him, and he laughed and shrugged.

"Perhaps I've just got the magic touch?" _Such as you wouldn't know, you poor creature. Magic in every press of my hands, greater than your own, greater than even the queen's... Great enough to tear that heart out now, without need of a knife, and take what else I wished from your body also_.

The star hung its head miserably. "I've got nothing to pay you for a room..."

"Stay. I've plenty of rooms available, especially for those who find themselves so desperately in need. Shall I draw you a bath?"

"Please," the star smiled, getting up to carefully walk around. The moment it realised it could put weight on its foot again, it broke out into a run. In no time at all it was sprinting - stark naked, and caring nothing - around the hall of the inn, leaping chairs and laughing like a child in springtime, and the glow of it left trails of light like the streams of human sparklers behind it as it ran. The warlock laughed, filling the copper bathtub by the hearth with water and enchanting it hot.

"It's ready, when you're ready for it."

The star sank into the bath gratefully, closing its eyes and tipping back its head. The warmth of the water seemed to visibly fill even its bones, setting liquid gold flowing through its veins, and it was soon shimmering faintly in the water. The whole far end of the hall was filled with light, weaker than he would have liked but still bright enough that it put the lamps, if not the fire, to shame. Bright, pure and clean, and the sign of a heart growing strong in that broad white chest. He reached beneath the bar for the knife, carefully drawing a fingertip over the blade to test its sharpness. Blood welled from a paper-thin cut; he raised it to his mouth with a smile.


	6. White Berries (the Star's Heart I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Dis for beta'ing here because honestly this chapter would've been terrible without her input.

_I saw for Baldr, the bleeding god,_  
 _The son of Odin, his destiny set:_  
 _Famous and fair in the lofty fields,_  
 _Full grown in strength the mistletoe stood._  
\- Völuspá

The sky was beginning to dim as a crisp frost chilled the air, heralding the end of the second day of the search for the hammer. Loki scowled at the dying light and dragged the stoat, drugged and slow-witted with seiđr - something that made him think, viciously, of his brother - onto the jagged slab of rock before him. The knife cut through the fragile skin, and he yanked out the entrails to spread them out and read them. Not for the first time, he envied his brother; beautiful, golden, with the broad head of their father and their mother's long, flowing blond hair rippling about his shoulders. Loki, angular, slim, quick-witted and sharp-tongued, was far removed from the rest of Odin's sons; a changeling, perhaps, or sprite-touched in the cradle.

Baldr, with his gift of prophecy, would undoubtedly be far closer to the hammer than Loki himself. After the whole sorry business with the lying soothsayer, Loki would be spending the rest of the search with the dust from Baldr's heels clouding his vision. No longer. Something had to be done, and quickly.

But not in this gloomy light. He settled instead amongst the trees, bushy undergrowth and waxy ferns hiding the glow of his lamp, the canvas of his tent; he pulverised with the heel of his hand an inquisitive woodlouse and wiped the remains off onto his cloak, cursing the woods, the hour, and Baldr's soothsayer's wild goose chase. He lay with his head pillowed on a folded travelling cloak, staring up at the trees, amusing himself with his seiđr. He enchanted the plants to wind themselves around tree branches and twigs to form shapes, words; a noose, perhaps, or a trickle of brilliant red blooms like a flow of blood down the trunk. He thought, staring up at the wheeling stars, of his brother Thor, booming laugh like rolls of thunder, glistening blue eyes as bright and brilliant as summer skies, the warmth of his smile and the freckles dusting his strong nose. Hating him as Loki did, there was love there, unwanted but undeniable.

Mistletoe strangled birds' nests and the slimmer, diseased branches of an oak beside his head. He remembered, far back in his childhood, his mother taking him out amongst the gardens of Asgard and teaching him about the numerous flora and fauna surrounding him. His brothers, bored of the lesson, had wandered off (no doubt to bother the master-at-arms for sword practise so that they could swing blunted blades at one another's idiot heads in a mockery of combat). Loki stayed at Frigga's side, hand resting in hers, as she pointed up between the cavernous branches of an elm and made him promise "never to play with the plant with the white berries."

He had stared at her, serious as only a child could be, and asked her why.

She told him that when she had given birth to him, and had seen him, so slight and delicate compared to the roly-poly bulk of her four other sons, she had asked that the plants all promise never to harm her children. All had agreed but one. The white berries, she said, would poison him to eat; the branches were sharp as needles, and would strangle anyone they could reach. Loki had nodded, frightened, and asked if even Father was afraid of this plant. Frigga had nodded (although Loki suspected now that it was more to spare his feelings than any sort of truth).

"Promise me, Loki," she had said, and he had nodded.

"I promise, Mother."

The mistletoe above him was a Gordian knot around the uppermost branches of the oak. Tendrils, thin as spider-silk, dangled down, swaying gently in the breeze like searching fingers. He twisted his fingers briefly and it snapped rigidly still, affronted, before shooting down, a living thing, to dangle only feet above his head. It seemed to wait, seething, berries glowing in the twilight like the lures of predatory ocean fish before winding further along the branch, forming a rope ready to swing down the moment he moved. He was locked in this standoff with the plant until the sharp crack of a snapping twig in the near vicinity made both plant and prince twitch, on high alert.

The rumble of carriage wheels made Loki retreat into his tent whilst he collected his thoughts and chastised himself for his own idiocy. He had taunted the plant, poked and prodded at it like a child with a wasp nest; provoked it, thanks to his infernal curiosity, always his downfall. That, and never listening to Mother as a child. Not like Thor, who had blithely ignored parents and peers alike, swinging his stupid hammer around like an infant with a toy rattle, as though it pleased his ears to hear the crash and crackle of electricity whirl above him; nor like Baldr, so quiet they thought him mute until the first time he laughed, pulling Loki's hair with one chubby pink fist.

There was a whoosh of passing air, a soft crinkle of leaves, and a shout - a terribly human shout, the sound of a man - before the sounds of a scuffle broke out on the path, above which the vine of mistletoe waited. Bandits, perhaps, happening upon an unfortunate traveller; thankfully, they had not yet become aware of Loki. He pulled his dagger from its sheath at his waist and held it in his fist. He rarely needed the clumsy aid of a physical blade to incapacitate anyone; brute force was more Thor's forte than his own, but the Allfather had insisted that all of his sons be taught to defend themselves properly, without "that woman's weapon", seiđr. Frigga's jaw had clenched at those words until Loki slipped his hand into hers and admitted proudly that "I would rather be like you, Mother, than like him."

Loki had always been their mother's favourite, and their father's blight.

The scuffle wore on until the weak sounds of air escaping from a man's lungs echoed along the path, followed by the crackling of withdrawing vines. Loki strained his ears for the sound of footsteps, but heard none. Risking a glance outside the tent - dagger clutched in his spindly fingers, spell already on the tip of his tongue - he edged out into the clearing of the road to see a body, still in the moonlight, lying spread-eagled in the road.

He approached warily.

For a moment - brief, but encompassing him in a panic so strong he almost fell to his knees - he saw the billowing halo of blond hair and almost screamed his brother's name. But his seiđr strangled the noise before it could escape, lest the bandits come back. He lit his fingers with seiđr, glowing white-blue, and knelt beside the body to turn the head. Livid black marks encircled the throat, stark against the white of the skin; all of that healthy, ruddy glow drained in death. The only hints of red came from the man's cape, still knotted around his shoulders, and the coppery sheen of his hair.

Not blond. Red.

Not Thor. Baldr.  
  


* * *

  
A cry of "Help him!" awoke Steven from his slumber. He thrashed awake, entangled in his thick travel coat as he was, and reached blindly for the star, finding nothing. He jumped up, frantic - there was no sign of him, not even a trail of footprints or broken twigs to follow - and felt his chest constrict with fear as the cries grew louder, echoing in his ears and seemingly inside his skull itself. Flashes of light danced in front of his eyes, as though he were reeling from a blow to the head; he crashed through the undergrowth, heedless of scratching branches and grasping twigs tearing at his skin, trying to follow the sound of the voices. But they were all around him, calling from high above, loud and shrill and piercing, until all he could do was cover his ears and try to block them out.

"Please!" he cried, shaking his head, "please, stop!"

"Steven!" they called, strident with fear, "Help him! Help our brother!"

The word 'brother' made him jolt with shock. It was a crazy thought, a bizarre thought - but he turned his eyes upwards to see the stars, clustered and glowing, above him, and his vision filled not with their white light against the darkness but with a flickering picture. A woman - beautiful as the day was long, with coral-red lips and long curling dark hair - laid on a table; a hideous old man with a face so sunken and flecked with age that it seemed little more than a skull, bald and brilliant red as though scalded. The man was holding a knife, jagged and cruel and shimmering in the low light like glass, which he suddenly lowered in a vicious swing of his arm, about to-

"No!"

"Steven, Bucky is in danger," the voices told him, forcing him to watch as the image changed to the star - Bucky, apparently - was laid out in a bath by the fire, his skin warmed to a glow like a flickering tallow candle, another old man behind the bar of an inn. He reached under the bar and withdrew a knife - the same vicious glass knife as the dream, the vision Steven had just seen. He gasped, eyes flying open, and looked upwards to the stars, pleading with them.

"Where is he?"

He was shown an image of a crossroads, a large, old-fashioned inn positioned in exactly the centre as though it had sprung up out of the ground like a toadstool. Grasping his rucksack, he threw it over one shoulder and ran for the road, slipping and skidding over the damp leaves and mulch beneath his boots. The woods echoed with his panting breaths; he could think of nothing but the star and that knife, painfully aware of the passage of time. He was so caught up in his fear that he almost ran into the side of a carriage rumbling along the road; instead he called desperately to the driver.

"Sir! Sir, please!"

A sharp, thin face of indiscriminate gender with glittering green eyes turned to look at him, curtained by long dark hair. The person's voice was as hard and clipped as their features when they responded.

"I don't have time to take in wayward strays. Goodbye-"

"Sir - Sir? Please. I need to get to the crossroads. Surely there's some way I can repay you. I have coin. Please, sir, it's - I'm not asking much. Please."

"You have no idea to whom you're speaking, do you?" The man (it was a man) sneered; he jumped down from the bench at the front of the carriage and stalked towards Steven, movements catlike and predatory. "I am a prince, a god. And you are mud on my boots. You do not _ask_ anything of me."

Steven rankled slightly, a hard edge creeping into his voice. "With all due respect," he gritted out, "I am mud on no man's boots. I ask nothing but passage. I have offered to pay you. And to be honest, sir," he snapped, "I don't have time myself to be wasting arguing with you."

"Such vitriol," the man laughed, eyes glinting black in the light, "Thor would love you."

"I'm sorry?"

"Very well. You may join me. But you will sit beside me, you will put away the horses when we make the stop, and you will never mention to anyone that you have seen me."

Steven simply climbed aboard as a sign of his acquiescence. The man swung himself up onto the bench beside him and cracked the whip; the horses lurched into a gallop, and they seemed to fly along the road. Looking down, Steven almost cried out in surprise to see that one of the horses had not four legs, but eight; the man beside him spoke to it, in a rumbling, guttural tongue Steven had never heard before, and it whinnied and galloped even harder until sweat lathered its neck and forequarters.

Behind him in the carriage he could hear soft voices, deep and far away as though from the bottom of a well. Three men, calling one another Valley, Vidder and Balder, discussing the person his companion had mentioned earlier - a brother, Thor. The deepest voice seemed angered whenever this name was mentioned; the highest, perhaps belonging to Balder (Steven understood that he was the youngest of them), seemed sadder, his rich voice gloomy. Steven's companion banged his fist against the side of the carriage and shouted in that same strange language, something that rose a clamour for a moment before the interior dissolved into sullen silence.

Steven only grew more confused.

Thankfully he had little time to dwell on it as the carriage pulled up at the crossroads bare moments later. Steven was unceremoniously dragged from his perch by the dark-haired man, and shoved towards the inn to secure their rooms for the night. His companion, apparently deciding that Steven was not to be trusted with the horses, was the one checking their harnesses, smoothing a pale, long-fingered over velvet noses and purring to them in that strange language of his. Steven almost paused to peep in the windows of the carriage but was ushered on with an angry shout from the driver. Muttering angrily to himself, he carefully opened the inn door.

He was met by the inn keeper, glowering, who curtly informed him that there were no more rooms available that evening, but that he would be welcome to share the stables with the horses. Steven tried to insist, but was turned down again, the door slammed in his face. He turned for the courtyard, intending to head for the stables to see if there was a way into the inn from there. They were locked tight, and the man he had travelled with had disappeared; horses and all, the carriage was nowhere to be seen. Steven had been entirely abandoned at the inn, with no plan and no real way inside the inn bar breaking a window.

The stars were still speaking to him, more urgently now than ever. Amidst their cries of "Help him!", Steven peered in at the windows, trying to get a glimpse of the wayward young man. The hall was full of shadows, only a vague glimmer in one corner suggesting the star's presence at all. Gritting his teeth, he ran around the back of the building and threw his bag through a room window to clamber in. He cut his fingers on the jagged glass but paid it no mind; the star was his sole focus. Visions of the red skull-headed man and that knife filled his mind's eye; it was all too easy to imagine his star laid out and captive on that stone slab. Lying low, he crept out of the room and into the hallway, just in time to see the innkeep help the star out of the tub and wrap him in a towel before reaching into his belt for -

Steven picked up the poker from where it hung beside the fire and charged, swinging his makeshift weapon like a sword, cracking down on the man's hand and slapping the knife out of his grip. It skittered over the floor, glinting wickedly in the firelight, as the man grasped at the poker and wrenched it out of Steven's grip. He snarled, a green glow filling the air, and the star behind Steven screamed as the fire shot out tendrils of flame which licked along the floorboards, forming a ring around them.

Steven leapt for the poker as the man picked up the knife, plunging his hand into the flames as though it were nothing. He didn't burn; didn't even flinch. Steven, heart hammering in his chest, glanced over his shoulder at the star, who was stricken with fear and desperately trying to find a way out of the circle of fire encompassing them. He reached for the star's hand and hung on, searching amongst the flames for the poker. His hand burned, white-hot pain bursting along his arm, and as his fingers curled around the iron he had to drop it as the heat intensified against his palm. He cried out in agony, shaking his hand, and the man laughed... He raised the knife again.

Steven, lost for anything else to do, simply threw himself in front of the cowering star, intending to act as a human shield.

"Out of the way, you stupid boy," the man growled, flicking his hand to send Steven flying, thrown by a green arm, out of the circle. The ring of flames became a noose, tightening around the star and the warlock, as the man approached and the star desperately searched for an out.

"You're frightened, weak, barely glowing... A sorry meal for myself and my brothers," the warlock taunted, making a lunge for the star's chest. He ducked, terrified tears streaming down his face, and dodged carefully to edge a little further around the circle, trying to evade the warlock. The flames only tightened further until the poor star had nowhere to go; no other option but to stand and die as the warlock carved out his heart.


	7. Sky Captain Aboard the Bilskirnir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to Dis for this beta <3

_Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he is afraid?'_  
 _'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him._  
\- George R. R. Martin

Sparks from the fire, green and sulphurous, spewed into the air, leaving stinging marks on Steven's face and hands as he scrambled up from the floor. He felt his gut seize in fear, eyes zeroing in on the star, cowering in the centre of the ring of flames as the warlock loomed over him, knife in hand. Rifling through his pockets, Steven did the only thing he could think of; leapt into the flames, grasping the star's hand, and thrust the other - Babylon candle clutched tight in his fist - into the fire, shrieking, "Think of home!"

The warlock made another vicious swing with the knife as the candle wick ignited, Steven's hand cramping and searing in agony, the star's white face filling his vision as light burst around them and they shot out of the inn, the ground below their feet disappearing into nothing but starlight and the cold, soft wisps of clouds. They landed, with a soft, slightly wet sound, on a large cumulus several hundred feet above the green velvet fields of Faerie. Steven's head spun as he peered dizzily over the edge, a sudden rush of vertigo making him tremble.

The star was pacing beside him, angrily gesticulating with wild arm movements and grey eyes glittering. He kicked at a clump of cloud and it sailed serenely into the air, floating away to join another, smaller colony nearby, studded through with raindrops like diamonds which reflected starlight back at him.

"Fuckin' _brilliant_ idea that was! _Think of home!_ Oh, _well done, genius_ \- 'think of home', and we end up here! Dunno if you noticed, pal, but this ain't _home_ to neither of us-"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Steven snapped back furiously, hurt. "That lunatic was about to carve your heart out with a knife and you're telling me the plan that _got us away from him_ was a bad idea because _you_ can't follow simple instructions-"

"You should have said 'think of my home'!" the star retorted, nose in the air.

"You're right! In the split seconds I had, I should've thought of more specific instructions! Maybe next time I can put it in writing! Or draw you a diagram!" he huffed, scowling, and clutched his burned hand to his chest. The star, for all his blustering anger, seemed slightly chastened by that, and slowly approached with his hands outstretched to take a look at Steven's injury. He hissed through his teeth as the star cupped the stinging limb in his cool hands and moved it this way and that, trying to see the extent of the damage.

"Looks nasty," he said with no small amount of sympathy, eyes bright on Steven's face. Steven pulled his hand away sharply, temper still simmering.

"Don't touch me."

"Fine! Jesus, humans're a prickly bunch-"

"Look who's bloody talking!" Steven argued in disbelief. _After that whole show in the crater with the rocks, and he has the gall to call_ me _prickly!_

"Ooh, _bloody_ now! Mr. Prim an' Proper's droppin' his airs and graces now, ain't he - 'bloody'! Next thing I know he's gonna be slingin' the f-word at me-"

"Don't be such a bloody child!" Steven snapped, pain and frustration at their current situation making him irritable. The star plonked himself down on a cushion of cloud as far as he could possibly get away from Steven and glowered, staring down at the world far below them and audibly still muttering to himself about "idiots who can't give proper instructions" and "ain't even home" and "never gonna get back now", misery colouring his tone at the latter. Steven's heart gave a twinge at having broken his promise of using the Babylon candle to get the star back home, but there had been little else he could have done. He let out a heavy sigh and began to get to his feet when a roll of thunder pealed around them, lightning flashed, and a torrential downpour began.

He sat back down on his cloud, chewing the inside of his cheek sourly. The star looked up, mouth opening as though about to begin complaining about their current predicament yet again, but the expression on Steven's face must have quelled it even before he spoke:

"Son, just don't."

"Not your son," the star mumbled, but obediently shut his mouth.

The creaking of timbers drew Steven's attention seconds before a net - big enough to catch a whole school of fish - dropped over the cloud they were sitting on, lightning crackling menacingly along the mesh of wire, and scooped them up to land heavily on the slick deck of a boat. Several large, burly men were standing over them in sou'westers and oilskins, prodding and poking at them curiously with fingers like sausages. Steven kicked and struggled in the net, trying to disentangle himself, when a deep, sonorous voice echoed around the deck.

"And what, pray tell, might you two be doing up here in the middle of nowhere?"

"Lightning marshals, Captain," came a female voice from beside Steven, belonging to a woman with a braid of dark hair dangling over her left shoulder and a strong-jawed face with eyes like mirrors. She kicked lightly at Steven's heel and dragged him out of the net, her arms corded with muscle, far stronger than he had previously given her credit for. A red-headed man beside him with a thick beard and a rumbling stomach laughed and shook his head.

"They're hardly a danger, Sif. He's, what, five-and-ten? Let the boy be."

"I'm twenty-three," Steven growled from between gritted teeth as the star snickered from beneath the net, and aimed a none-too-subtle kick at Sif's shin. She floored him again in a snakelike blur of movement, her heel on his chest and a smirk on her lips.

"And I wasn't born yesterday," she retorted.

"Let him up, Sif. Volstagg is correct, the boy is hardly a threat." The captain - or so Steven assumed - stepped forward again. Steven was forced to look up - and up, and up - at him, as the man towered over him at well above six feet tall. He wrenched the heavy net off of the star with a sweeping movement and the star scrambled to his feet, quick to distance himself from the human at the focal point of the crew's scrutiny. However, the captain turned from Steven to the star, looking him up and down, and his eyebrows raised in realisation.

"You are from the other side of the Wall," he said, turning to Steven, "if you do not realise the value of what you have brought aboard my ship." He gestured to the star with a smile and a laugh that rattled the clouds like a roll of thunder. "I ought to be thanking you."

The star balled his fists, glowering, but fear was sharp and clear in his eyes. "I don't know what you think I am, buddy, but I ain't-"

"Don't lie to me," the Captain rumbled, eyes narrowing. "I have had enough of that from my brother, such as to last a lifetime. I won't tolerate it from trespassers also." He turned to Steven. "Tell me who you are and how it is that you came to not only be up here illegally, but to have possession of... this charming young man."

"Oh, I sure as hell ain't his possession-!"

"Who's asking?" Steven snapped back, squaring up to the Captain with as much bravado as his five foot frame could muster. "I don't recall you telling us anything about how you happened to be up here, either, and you'll forgive me for sayin' so, but ships usually sail on water. So I'm thinkin', if we're up here illegally, then you are, too-"

The Captain smiled, brutal, eyes glittering. "Whatever your assumptions, Wall boy," he argued, "the fact remains that should I decide to throw you over the side of this ship, you will have nothing but your - companion here to catch you. Whereas I have a sky ship, a crew, and the considerable power of this storm all working in my favour. So I will ask you again, and this time you will answer me," he leant closer, pressing his face up close to Steven's, eyes hard as flints, "who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I don't like bullies," Steven retorted, glowering, and the Captain, losing his temper, gave the order to have them thrown into the brig.  
  


* * *

  
The warlock bellowed as he slammed the knife towards the disappearing bodies of the star and its human bodyguard; the knife shattered, shards tinkling to the conjured flagstones, and he threw the useless handle away in disgust. With a Babylon candle they could be anywhere, and he hadn't any interpretative creatures around whom he could read to find out their whereabouts. Sighing in frustration, he resigned himself to having to consult his brothers, and stepped in front of the great burnished-copper mirror hanging over the tub, rubbing the ring on his finger.

"You failed," was the first thing his brothers said to him, upon their faces glimmering into view on the surface of the mirror. "And apparently quite spectacularly." His youngest brother seemed smug at that realisation, his jowly, puglike face splitting into a smirk. Beside him, the middle brother glared, his brilliant red skin seeming to tighten with fury as he clenched his jaw.

"Fine work, brother. Now the star is lost to us!"

"Read something. Look for him. He can't have gotten too far."

His brothers, though visibly affronted by his tone, obeyed, dragging a crocodile onto the stone slab in the centre of the room - their divination alter, cracked and worn with age, with pits and pools of dried blood crusted to the surface of the stone - and opened it, dragging out white, squirming worms of guts and holding them aloft in the weak cabin light to read. The red-headed warlock dropped his handful in disgust, lip curling, eyes flashing with ire.  
"He is airborne. You have lost him - fool!"

"No," the youngest murmured, stretching a length of intestine between stubby, ugly hands. "Airborne, yes - but returned, no. He is still fallen," he grinned, "and as such, he must return."

"Bring him back here," the middle brother said harshly, rummaging in their cabinets for the sisters of the glass knife the warlock had broken in his first attempt, "and we shall do it then. Together. This can be rectified, brother." _But we are not pleased with you_ , he tacked on wordlessly at the end. The warlock rolled his eyes, rubbing the ring again to cut the sight of his brother's faces from the mirror.

He gritted his teeth and consulted his runes. _Airborne; west_ , they told him. _Towards the Wall_.  
  


* * *

  
The storm had cleared and the star was keeping up his usual monologue of complaints about Steven's lack of planning, foresight and general stupidity when the trapdoor to the brig banged open and the captain stepped down the ladder. He was even bigger and broader than Steven remembered, with wild, tangled locks of blond hair - partially braided, apparently in an attempt to tame his hair into something resembling neat - and a shortish beard. His eyes, however, were a brilliant blue; warm, friendly, and currently sparkling with curiosity.

"I have never laid eyes upon such a pair of lightning marshals as you," he rumbled, crouching beside where the pair of them were tied up, bound together tightly in Sif's slightly sadistic handiwork, "which leads me to think that perhaps Sif's assumption about you was wrong. Why exactly were you up in the clouds during that storm?"

The star opened his mouth and Steven kicked him, hard, in the leg. "Mishap with a candle."

"A candle?"

"A Babylon candle. _Someone_ wasn't able to follow instructions-"

" _Someone_ isn't fuckin' _capable_ of giving decent instructions!"

"Won't you watch your mouth? We've been threatened with being thrown overboard once already, and I don't fancy seein' if he'll actually do it!" Steven hissed sharply, trying to wriggle enough to elbow the star in the side. The star huffed and stuck his nose in the air, rolling his eyes, and the Captain watched their disagreement with amusement in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

"Odin's beard, I've not seen such fireworks in close quarters since myself and L- well, in a long time." He laughed, a rumble that shook the ship and made the clouds outside vibrate gently. "I doubt you will have to wait, young man, to see whether I will indeed throw you over the side of the ship. All things point to the pair of you murdering one another before I ever get the chance!"

"He's insufferable," Steven groaned, and the star aimed a kick at him, affronted.

"He's a fuckin' moron!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Please, please," the Captain laughed, bellowing, wiping tears of mirth away from the corners of his eyelids, "that's hardly necessary." Footsteps upon the deck quickly made him change his demeanour, however, from amused and curious to falsely hard-eyed and angry.

"I asked you a question earlier, and now I demand my answers. Who are you?"

"Travellers. I'm - I'm Grant, Grant Rogers, and this is -"

"James," the star supplied quickly, flashing a glance at Steven, biting his lip. This was the first time, in truth, that either had shared a name to be called by, and it was obvious to each that the other was lying. Steven glanced up at the captain, who had one eyebrow raised and steadily climbing towards his hairline, clearly unconvinced.  
"We're travellers, from Wall-"

"From where, did you say?"

"Wall-"

"That's one lie too many, boy," the Captain yelled, grabbing Steven by the collar. Steven was too shocked to do much more than gape and flop like a fish out of water in his grasp for a moment, before his instincts kicked back in. He attempted a wild swing at the Captain's shoulder, clocking the star - James, as good a name as any for him, Steven supposed - in the head as his fists, still bound at the wrist, sailed past. The Captain dragged him up and over to the porthole, slamming him against the sill with his head out in midair and with nothing below but clouds and air for miles and miles. Steven's breath caught in his chest, heart racing, temples slick with sweat - he could smell the fear on himself, acrid - but he continued to struggle, managing to aim a hard kick between the Captain's legs, catching him enough by surprise that he dropped Steven and fell to the floor. Steven took the opportunity and ran, dragging the star up after him, darting up the cabin steps to the trapdoor, unlatching it with shaking fingers  -

To reveal the crew outside, armed, teeth bared in sharklike smiles. "Going somewhere, Wall boy?" The lady warrior, Sif, asked, with a jab of her sword at Steven's chest; Steven stayed stock still, star thrust behind him, still clinging to the rope binding James' wrists. It hadn't taken him long to realise that stars were not safe beyond the Wall, and it was him who had angered the Captain; the crew and Captain alike would have to go through him first before they laid a hand on James.

The Captain himself was slowly climbing to his feet, wincing and visibly fighting the urge to protectively cup his bruised genitals, but he offered Steven a genuine if slightly watery-eyed smile and held out his hand in truce.

"You will come to no harm, Grant Rogers, aboard this vessel. Nor you, James. Anyone who shows such-" he winced again and chuckled, laced with pain, "such - balls in facing me is more than welcome."

"But-" Sif began to protest, before the bearded redhead - Volstagg? - prodded her in the side with the butt of his gun and she fell silent, eyes flashing and mouth set mulishly in disapproval.

"Steve," Steven said, looking up at the Captain, and James' eyes flickered to his, curious and brilliant storm-grey; "Steve, not Grant."

"Steve. And James. I am Thor, previously of the house of Odin-" This the Captain said with a glimmer of pain in his eyes, a quick, silent dulling and to the backing of an intake of breath from the crew - "and these are my men, the lady Sif included." He gestured around the crew, introducing everyone - or allowing them to introduce themselves as they pleased.

Steve and James learned that the blond with the curlicued moustache was Fandral, a fierce warrior; Hogunn, a man with tanned skin and almond eyes that suggested the Orient, though he came from Faerie like the Captain and all the rest of the crew; Volstagg, the redhead, was the vessel's chef (being a great lover of food and drink), but was no less fearsome for it; and Sif, the lone female on board, who made no secret of her disapproval that they should be allowed to stay on board and refused even to look at the Captain after he had so decreed. Quill, or 'Star Lord', a somewhat brash young man from some far-flung reach of the land, was chief navigator; beside him, Drax, enormous and mottled with tattoos, silent and (Steve could tell) deadly; Groot, considered something of a mascot, equally silent and with curiously greyish, cracked skin like tree bark, and finally, a raccoon with an unexpectedly foul mouth whom they were instructed to call Rocket, or nothing at all.

And so it was that Steve and James found themselves aboard the Bilskirnir.


	8. All April / Where is the hammer

_You seemed all brown and soft, like a linnet,_  
_Your errant hair had shadowed sunbeams in it,_  
_And there shone all April_  
_In your eyes._  
\- Roland Leighton

Their time aboard the Bilskirnir was, for the most part, leisurely, full of afternoons of sailing lessons from the Captain, when he would hand over the wheel to Steve and teach him to direct the ship through the sky, changing course, tacking the sails, and even storm navigation. In the evenings, the whole crew would pile into the galley, where Volstagg would have made an enormous meal of at least four courses full of flavours Steve had never even imagined, let alone tasted. These dinners were eclectic, dishes from all over the Nine Realms (as the crew, and the Captain in particular, referred to the human-dubbed 'Faerie'). A curry whose recipe came from Muspelheim in the far south contained spices that burned the tongue and made the eyes water, and on one memorable occasion made steam come pouring from James' ears like a boiling kettle, much to the crew's amusement; another, a stew full of rich, starchy root vegetables and dark meat, came from Nidavellir amongst the mountains, and turned the skin curiously rough and greyish like stone for several hours. Steve was fascinated by the magic of the food, and begged Volstagg to teach him several of his favourite recipes, which Volstagg obligingly wrote down in a scrawled hand that was afterwards completely illegible.

One afternoon when it was storming, rain pouring down to thud on the boards of the ship like herds of animals constantly running across the deck but with no sign of thunder nor lightning for the crew's livelihoods, Steve amused himself by helping James to raid Volstagg's spice rack and then spent the afternoon feeding the star the hottest chillies and laughing at the plumes of steam that filled the cabin as he gasped for water and rubbed at his streaming eyes. The crew soon caught them at it and within moments, even Volstagg himself had joined in, plying the pair of them with taste after taste of Muspelheimr spices and chuckling in amusement at their struggle to cope with the heat blistering the insides of their mouths and warming the pits of their stomachs into volcanoes.

Volstagg's cooking seemed to have other extraordinary effects also. Within a week of dining onboard the ship, Steve had realised that his chest - notoriously weak, with fragile lungs and a pounding heart - had grown stronger, until he could take breaths that seemed full enough to burst, until the rush of oxygen through his veins was dizzying afterwards. He was now able to climb out of bed immediately in the mornings, rather than having to remain laying down for several moments until his blood pressure adjusted enough to allow him to stand. James had blinked in surprise the first time he saw this happen, and Steve had grinned and grabbed his hand, dragging him out on deck to the wheel to teach him in turn how to fly.

"The ship's already got you an' the Captain, I don't need to learn-"

"At least try," Steve cajoled, placing the star's hands on the knobs of the wheel and gently curling his own around them, stepping close to James' back and resting his head on his shoulder to show him. He had grown taller - by over a foot, in fact - since he had come onboard the ship, and by now was able to stand behind James and see over the top of his head, where he would have struggled to see over his shoulder before. He carefully adjusted the wheel to sail around the soft bulk of a cloud, and James turned his head to look at him as the wheel spun beneath their hands, creaking gently. His eyes were wide, curious, and glowing the colour of molten silver; Steve smiled and spun the wheel again.

"You need to look forward, or else we'll crash."

"Into a cloud," James snorted, but flicked his gaze back forwards as ordered anyway. "We'd have to get a shipwright in. Without a telephone. We'll have to use a carrier pigeon-"

"Smoke signals," Steve teased, his cheek curving into a smile against James', "we'll feed you chillies."

"I ain't eatin' those things ever again," James said, with no heat behind it as he glanced back at Steve with a grin, "not for you, not for no man."

"Should I get Sif to ask you, then?"

"She's an honorary man for that," James murmured, and Steve laughed against his cheek, breath warm against the nape of his neck, tickling the soft hairs and making him shiver.

"Don't tell her that."

"I don't mind!" came Sif's voice from the deck, and they both stared at each other in consternation for several long moments before James snorted and burst out laughing. Within seconds, the Captain had to come and take over as helmsman because both Steve and James were laughing so hard that they were hanging onto the wheel more for support than to keep course, and as such the ship was careening towards Alfheim, too far in the west. Steve stepped away from the helm, still chuckling, and headed down to the main deck, his hand still in James' and the star following behind, skin shimmering silver.

As well as lessons in flying the ship, Steve and James both received tutelage in fencing and general self-defensive weaponry. Each primary member of the crew had his (or her, in Sif's case) own speciality: Drax, pugilism and dual knives; Sif, broad- and longsword (along with Volstagg and Fandral); Hogunn, the Captain, the warhammer. Drax and the Captain were both enormous, musclebound powerhouses that easily pounded the living daylights out of Steve the first few times he went up against either of them, until they ended the sessions and he was left to nurse his bruises and several broken ribs in peace. The lady Sif was merciless, but sparred with blunted blades, allowing for bruises and fractures rather than severed limbs or heads. Steve picked up the use of a shield fastest, and afterwards was rarely seen without it either on his arm ready or slung over his back if it was after a training session.

The Captain worked them hardest of all. His weapon was an enormous warhammer with a blunt metal head that James could barely lift, let alone swing; Steve fared a little better, though defending himself with a hammer whilst also trying to keep his shield up proved cumbersome and tiring. James suggested he use the hammer still hidden in the depths of his rucksack in the cabin, but Steve reminded him of the unruly behaviour of its electrical charge whilst in his hands and both of them agreed that until he had learned to control an ordinary warhammer properly, an electrical one was out of the question.

Thor had also granted them access to his wardrobe since they were living in his cabin, allowing the pair of them to choose new, better-fitting pieces of clothing after spending weeks in the same travel-worn apparel. James insisted on loose, movable clothes - a shirt with a lace-up neckline (which he never laced) and long, billowing sleeves like a Romantic, with breeches that hugged his thighs but allowed for ease of movement across the deck - and went everywhere barefoot. He abhorred shoes, and would tear them off in a fit if anyone attempted to force him to wear them, even in a storm when the deck was slick with rain and in danger of a lightning strike.

He moved as though he were floating on cushions of air, rather than standing on a hard surface of wood; naturally, the sky - so far as they were indeed in or on it - was his home, so it was little wonder that he was more at ease onboard the Bilskirnir. Steve found the change in demeanour fascinating, and the change in fluidity of movement even more so. He would spend hours sat on a barrel on the deck with a sheaf of the Captain's letter-paper on his knee, sketching endless well-turned ankles and smooth, delicate curves of the arches of James' feet. Of course the star noticed, and promptly accused him - with twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin - of unsavoury interest in feet, just to watch the colour rise in his cheeks as he coughed and spluttered out a protest. But still, day after day, he would sit by the stairs to the helm deck and draw, his eyes on James' face or hands or limbs as he glided about.

Occasionally James would come and sit by him on the barrel, leaning his head on Steve's shoulder to watch him draw, and Steve would sit and sketch Groot's curious cracked skin like bark, or Drax's intricate whorls of tattoos, or the fluttering of Sif's hair in the wind that stirred the whole ship. Spring was beginning to coax Faerie to life below them, the fields slowly turning green again and the sky around them always heavy with moisture and the promise of showers. The sun was beginning to climb higher into the bowl of the sky with every passing day, and James seemed to grow brighter with it, until looking at him in the morning almost blinded Steve in the darkness of the cabin.

James was on deck now, standing beside Star Lord in the corner with his hair whipping around his face, now jaw-length with a gentle curl at the ends; he was bent over a gramophone in delight, fingers fluttering over the horn and the polished wooden box hiding the mechanism. Star Lord pulled out a case full of records and carefully set one to play, a smooth, rocking melody with a beat that made Steve's feet tap against the side of the barrel as he picked up his pencil again and began to trace the smooth curve of James' back onto the paper. The star straightened immediately with a broad smile and crossed over to Steve, pulling gently at his sleeve.

"Dance with me."

"I can't. I don't. I... Believe me, I'm the last one you want to be dancing with."

"I ain't askin' no one else, I'm askin' you. Dance with me." He tugged more insistently.

"I'll step on your toes," Steve sighed, shaking his head with a rueful smile. "I'm going to stay here and draw it instead. It's the perfect time, you know, the perfect opportunity to practise sketching motion and -"

"And you're gonna be a stick-in-the-mud an' not come an' dance with me like I asked," James said, his bright smile faltering a little before he shook his head and stepped back into the middle of the floor. "Fine. You can be boring and sit and draw, an' I'll allow myself to enjoy life like you should be doin'."

The Captain, hearing the music, stepped out onto the deck a moment later, and was eagerly set upon by James in his search for a dance partner. Thor readily accepted, laughing jovially and taking James' hands to pull him close against his body. He arranged himself easily into waltzing position before taking the lead, and soon he and James were twirling around the deck in a flutter of oilskin and billowing cotton sleeves, the glow of James' skin and hair slowly growing brighter again as night began to fall around the ship and his brothers and sisters began to peek out from behind the clouds.

Sif came to sit beside Steve after what felt like an age of watching he and Thor dance. She plonked herself down on the barrel beside his and fixed him with an amused, knowing expression, one eyebrow raised.

"For somebody who turned down his invites to dance by saying that this would be the perfect opportunity to draw... he's been dancing for hours, and your page is empty."

Steve, who had been staring at the hypnotising curl of James' hair against the nape of his neck, the way Thor's giant hands dwarfed his shoulders, the aggravatingly close press of their bodies as he was dipped down - as though the Captain were about to kiss him (Steve at this point was gripping his pencil far tighter than was necessary) - gave a start and blushed bright red at her words, clutching the sheaf of papers to his chest defensively. He stared over the side of the ship as though a faraway cloud had suddenly become utterly captivating to him, but his gaze flickered back to James and Thor every couple of seconds.

James himself was spending the whole dance with his eyes on Steve, longing in their grey depths, until the Captain pulled him against his chest and slowed their movements to whisper in his ear.

"You hide it well, star boy."

"Hide what well? Other than my glowin' personality?"

Thor gave him a searching look, head cocked in puzzlement, before stepping back and away from James. "With my regrets, James... I think Steve wishes for your hand for this dance, and I would not want to keep you from your companion."

Steve had indeed climbed to his feet, and was holding out his hand stiffly in offering. James spent several long moments looking at him, deliberating, before accepting and carefully placing his hand in Steve's. He moved closer and laid his other hand on the human's shoulder, gazing up at him with the stars in his eyes, and shook himself lightly before asking, "D'you even know how to lead this?"

"I've waltzed before."

"With Virginia?"

"Yes." Steve fidgeted uncomfortably, feeling the sudden tightness of James' muscles beneath his palm, the way his hand twitched in Steve's as though trying to draw back. He hung on, taking a shaky step back, and began the dance awkwardly, trying to visualise Thor's steps in his head. But he had spent all those hours out on deck this afternoon watching James; he hadn't the first clue what Thor had been doing to lead, so entranced had he been by the trails of silver left behind the star's bare feet and the glow of his skin as he passed by, whirling in Thor's arms.

"I'm sorry," he said, not sure what he was apologising for. The star looked at him for a long time before nodding and turning his face away, which Steve took as acquiescence.

Star Lord changed the record again, and this time, the music was slower, sweeter, as Steve took James around their impromptu dancefloor. The star followed easily, even after Steve's clumsy, self-conscious half-steps; he looked up at Steve with his eyes and hair shining, to the point where even his skin seemed to be bathed in its own shimmer, completely independent of the soft moonlight. He was still teasing as they moved, his voice full of laughter, but his smile was soft and full of something Steve had never seen there before, something that made his heart brim and burst in his chest until starlight flooded his own veins.

"You're letting me lead again."

"Sorry," he mumbled, executing an awkward change of step to take the lead again. James stepped closer still and rested his hand against Steve's chest, shyly ducking his head into the crook between Steve's jaw and his shoulder. Their long, languid movements came to an end as the dance evolved into more of a close shuffling, their hands linked and Steve resting his cheek on the soft waves of James' hair, feeling the sparks tingling against his skin.

"We can just keep doing this," James murmured, and Steve nodded, running his thumb over the back of James' arm and wondering if his heart was thudding in James' ears as much as it was in his own chest.  
  


* * *

  
Loki was lying on his back, camped underneath an outcrop of rock at the border of Nidavellir, glowering at the flames of his campfire. He was no closer to the hammer now than he had been when that idiot country boy had almost run into the side of his carriage, awakening his brothers with grumbles of dissent. The carriage was parked in the valley below, where Vidarr was hanging out of the window watching the sky. He pointed suddenly as a shadow passed over the valley, a skyship lumbering through the clouds like an unwieldy beast - forcefully reminding Loki of his brother Thor when he'd had too much to drink, clumsy and stupid with his hands on Loki's face or waist, trying to pull him close. He watched it go with narrowed eyes, listening to the rumble of its creaking decks and the shouts of the sailors aboard, quiet with the distance. Some sounded familiar; a woman's voice he'd swear he'd heard years ago, and then a deep, booming laugh in response that was almost...

It couldn't be. Shaking his head, he chastised himself for the ridiculous flight of fancy. Imagining hearing his brother's voice, or Sif's, after so long was impossible. Father had said that Thor was dead - or dead to him, at least - and after so many years of being outcast, how could he not be? His idiot brother, so pampered and spoilt during their formative years at the palace, never wanting for anything. Thor wouldn't have the first clue of how to look after himself out in the world, and those bodyguards of his would have their work cut out trying to keep his idiot blond head out of trouble. Loki had spent years trying to curb Thor's uncontrollable pigheadedness, and gotten nowhere. Good luck to Fandral, Sif, Volstagg and the other one in succeeding where even he had failed.

He pulled his runes out of their leather pouch and studied them, jumbled in his palm, for several moments before casting them over the fire. He caught them in a hand stinging with the lick of the flames over his skin, and read them before throwing them against the wall in frustration. Always the same instructions; always the same impossible answer whenever he asked.

"Where is the hammer?" he yelled at them, lashing out with his seiđr, and they flew into the air before scattering over the jagged rock floor, smooth surfaces flashing in the firelight mockingly.

 _Up_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first part of this, whilst imagining Bucky dancing on the deck and Steve sketching, listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR3Xv28F91E). It's the exact soundtrack I had in my head and it is _beautiful_. (Also, the film that song is from is one of the most heartwrenching things I have ever watched and I was not okay for a long, long time afterwards.)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took such a long time to post, everybody! Work, the English weather and travel in general conspired against both myself and my beta against us :( Anyway, better late than never, and we hope you enjoy it!

_The pines were roaring on the height,_  
 _The wind was moaning in the night._  
 _The fire was red, it flaming spread;_  
 _The trees like torches blazed with light._  
\- J. R. R. Tolkien

The crew stepped carefully over the uneven cobblestones of the underground streets, Rocket complaining about having to haul a whole lightning roll by himself. Without a word, Drax grabbed it, Rocket still hanging on in shock and dangling from the strap, and slung it over his own shoulder with the other two he was carrying. Rocket's hollering in protest was drowned out by the crew's laughter for a couple of short moments before Groot picked him off gently and set him back down on the ground, where he walked alongside the rest of the group scowling and sulking.

Sif pointed down the street to Sitwell's office, adjusting the weight of her own burden on her shoulder, and slipped down a side street to lead the way. Thor - being technically banished from Asgard - couldn't run the risk of being seen on these deals, at least not by anyone with too loose a tongue, so the majority of their movements and deals had to be negotiated in alleyways and shadows.

The Captain was lounging against a grubby wall with the last two rolls when they joined him in the alley, where Sitwell was waiting, sweating feverishly and wringing his slim hands. Thor unscrewed the lid of one of the tubes and sent a great arc of lightning crackling between the two buildings, sparking fiercely, before shutting it off and turning to the fence with an expectant expression. The crew rallied behind him, arms folded.

"It's not as fresh as I would have liked-"

"Sif, Volstagg, reload the ship," Thor barked over his shoulder, and the two lieutenants immediately began making as to head back to the Bilskirnir. They were more than used to this charade; every time, Sitwell would attempt to drive down the price by saying the quality of the lightning they had collected was not up to scratch, and every time, Thor would not budge an inch. Sitwell was glowering at Thor from beneath his weedy brow, fidgeting with the collar of his shirt for a moment before angrily insisting "All right, all right. A hundred for the whole batch."

"Three hundred," Thor argued, massive hand clutched tight around the screw-top of the roll.

"One fifty."

"Three hundred."

"That's not bargaining," Sitwell protested, whining.

"I'm not one for haggling," Thor retorted. "If you wanted bargaining and sweet talk, you would be in trade with my brother. Instead you get me, and I lack Loki's silver tongue, for better or for worse as it may be."

"Two thirty, final offer."

"Two thirty, agreed. So, with tax, that comes to three hundred." Thor shot him a brilliant grin as Sitwell sighed heavily and waved for the lightning to be brought into his office.

"Fine, fine." Sitwell grasped Thor's arm as the crew passed, pulling him aside and out of earshot. Thor leaned in close, hand around the back of Sitwell's neck in a quiet threat to not try anything now that the crew was otherwise occupied; of course, Sitwell would never stand a chance against Thor's muscular size and weight, but the smallest ones were often also the most crafty, as Thor's own brother proved. Sitwell shuddered before whispering softly in Thor's ear, "There's been talk around the town, a fallen star... Now, lightning is one thing, but if we could get our hands on one of those... Well, you'll be living like a prince again."

Thor's face clouded furiously, eyes crackling and his fist tightening around Sitwell's neck.

"I would advise you not to speak of past lives with me," he growled, "and should I find you laying even a single finger on that star or any other... you will lose your _hands_."  
  


* * *

  
Bucky watched as the ship sailed over the outcropping of rock where the smoke from a hidden fire curled around the sails and rigging, sparks spitting into the air with quiet sizzling noises. They had been waved off with packs newly replenished with stores of food and clean clothes, Steve's hammer wrapped in an old shirt of the Captain's. Steve was inspecting a milestone at the side of the road, frowning at it with his hands in his pockets.

He turned around at the crunching of Bucky's bare feet over the dead ferns littering the ground. Bare toes wriggled amongst the scrub of heather, and Steve winced, glancing at Bucky in concern.

"You really ought to be wearin' boots for this stretch-"

"There you go about my feet again," Bucky grinned, leaning over to rest his chin on Steve's shoulder and shoot him an impish grin. "I'd offer to let you keep 'em, since you love 'em so much, but I'm kinda attached to them."

"Ha ha ha," Steve retorted, with no heat behind it whatsoever. Bucky cackled, darting away when Steve pretended to try and shove him; Steve gave chase until figures appeared on the horizon and he promptly shoved Bucky into a large, prickly bush, diving in after him without a second thought. He landed smack on top of the star, who 'oof'ed indignantly and opened his mouth no doubt to berate him before Steve pressed a finger to his lips and leaned in close.

"Someone's coming."

"So what?" Bucky hissed back, "that's no damn reason t'go shovin' me in a bush - if this is you tryin' to get close t'my feet I'm gonna kick you in the nuts, I swear to God-"

"Will you give up about me and your feet?" Steve sighed in exasperation. "As lovely as they are, I don't have 'some kind of freaky _thing_ ' for your feet, and I'm not interested in getting my - well, in doing anything untoward with them in a _bush_ of all places. I'm mostly trying to keep _you_ alive long enough for us to get to Wall." He picked a leaf out of the star's tousled dark hair, untangling it with gentle fingers. "I don't trust anyone any more. Not after that lunatic with the knife. You're too - you've got the knack of getting yourself into trouble, and it's my job to make sure someone gets you out of it."

The footsteps were getting louder as the other travellers approached their hiding place; Steve looked over his shoulder, hoping that he'd picked a big enough section of undergrowth to at least camouflage them, if not hide them outright. His heart rate picked up in fear as the travellers stopped for a moment, one insisting that they had heard voices; the other made a teasing joke about needing to get his hearing seen to in case that was going as well, and there were sounds of a short scuffle before they made their way onwards. His heart pounding, Steve let out a sigh of relief and allowed himself to look back at Bucky.

The star was so bright in the claustrophobic press of the bush around them that Steve was forced to squint. Every inch of him was bathed in light, hair wreathed in gold and skin shining almost silver in the weak moorland light; every inch of him a beacon screaming what he was, what he was worth. Steve shivered lightly and pressed himself a little closer, trying to smother as much of that light as possible with his body. If anyone found them, it would be immediately obvious that Bucky was a star, and news of that would no doubt travel fast back to those warlocks. He shuddered, remembering the visions of the female star on the table; his arms tightened around Bucky unconsciously, and the star gave a squeak of discomfort before levelling a glare at Steve.

"I don't need you squeezin' the damn life outta me any time soon, neither. Get off me, ya great lump-"

"Sorry," Steve breathed, settling back on his heels now that the footsteps had faded. Bucky huffed and sat up, brushing the twigs and leaves off his clothes. Steve reached forward to carefully disentangle another leaf from his hair, and Bucky batted at his hands for a split second before relenting and allowing him to thread his fingers through the mussed locks, teasing the tangles out one by one. Even when there wasn't a knot to be found in Bucky's hair, Steve's hands remained entwined, cupping the back of his skull tenderly, his eyes fixed on Bucky's face. Both of them were still as stone; Steve's heart was hammering in his chest at the expression on Bucky's face, his eyes wide and full of - of _longing_. He even seemed to be leaning in slowly, inexorably, his eyes fluttering to half-mast and his mouth falling temptingly open.

Steve swallowed and hurriedly let go.

Bucky froze for several excruciating seconds before opening his eyes and fixing Steve with an inscrutable look before pulling his jacket tighter around him and standing up abruptly, shoving past him and back onto the road. He stomped away angrily, shoulders set, bare feet splashing in the rainwater-filled potholes, leaving Steve to chase after him, calling his name.

"Bucky! Bucky, wait - Bucky-"

"We need to hurry up if you wanna get back to your Violet or whatever she's called," Bucky snapped. He neither stopped nor slowed down in his marching along the road, quickly catching up the two travellers who had passed them earlier. Steve thought to stop him, reaching out to grasp his arm, but checked himself at the top-level glare Bucky gave him. The light had dimmed in his anger; there was barely even a shimmer to his skin anymore, and his eyes were guarded and hurt. Steve touched his arm gently.

"Bucky, I'm sorry - I didn't mean to hurt you by shoving you into the bush, I swear -"

"Uh huh. Shoving me into the bush. That's why I'm mad." Bucky rolled his eyes. "Fuckin' humans, I swear to Christ-"

"Bucky!"

The star ignored him, shoving past the two travellers ahead of them. One of them yelled at him, waving a stick:

"HEY! WE'RE WALKIN' HERE!"

Bucky turned around, shame-faced, to apologise. The travellers were two men, one with dark hair and stubble and the other clean-shaven and dirty blond, supporting the brunette, who was wearing red glasses, on his shoulder. Bucky's face paled as he took in their ruffled appearance and noticed the glasses, guilt quickly washing over his features as he practically tripped over his tongue trying to apologise.

"Sorry - I'm - I'm sorry, I - I didn't mean to -"

"We just... well, I can't see ya," the one in the glasses told him. "Just take it easy."

"I'm sorry." Bucky ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm trying to get to Wall, you know, the village by the border -"

"Myself and Foggy are heading that way," the man in the glasses nodded. "We can walk you there." He tilted his face up to the sky for a moment. "It's getting late, though, and it's a long way away. If you need a bed for the night, you can stay with us and then we'll get set in the morning."

Steve, finally catching up, stopped beside Bucky and glanced between him and the two men. He immediately started shaking his head, eyes fixed on Bucky's face, hand coming up to grip his arm gently.  
"Bucky, no - bad idea-"

"Get off me," Bucky snapped, wrenching his arm away, "and it don't look like you've got any better ideas about where to stay tonight. Given that the owner of the last inn tried to kill me-" he glowered at Steve, "I'll take the blind man and his friend over anywhere else."

Steve bit his tongue mulishly but grudgingly agreed. "Fine. At the first sign of trouble, though, you're getting out of there if I have to carry you myself."

"Fine."  
  


* * *

  
The blind man and his companion, it turned out, were a pair of lawyers whose 'bed for the night' consisted of a small settee in a ramshackle office building in the ugliest corner of an equally ramshackle town. The fence they were trying to track down was already known to them for trafficking stolen goods, although it seemed he had recently stepped up his activities and had been interrogating customers about where to locate a fallen star. Bucky had gone whey-pale at that news and quickly retired to their makeshift bedroom, shaking, whilst Steve tried to ask vague questions about what had happened and how far Foggy and Matt had got in their investigations, all the while having the unnerving feeling that the blind lawyer was focusing entirely on him.

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about this whole case, would you?" Matt asked him bluntly, one eyebrow raised behind his glasses. Steve glanced quickly at Bucky through the gap in the door jamb before shifting his gaze back to Matt, shrugging nonchalantly.

"No."

Matt hummed thoughtfully, but thankfully dropped it. Foggy was trying to shift their bags into the bedroom, panting and huffing as he unsuccessfully attempted to shift Steve's full pack.

"What've you got in this thing?"

Steve jumped up to help, quickly unbuttoning the bag and removing the hammer - still wrapped in Thor's shirt - from the bag. He placed it on a small, rickety-looking table (momentarily fearing for the table's wellbeing, as the hammer was very heavy and after all, neither Bucky nor, apparently, Foggy could lift it) before helping Foggy move the bags into the 'bedroom'. He came back out to find Matt curiously touching the object, feeling the wrappings of linen and twine.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked, his voice strangely hard.

"A hammer," Steve replied. Probably best not to let them know that he knew what this hammer could do, particularly when swung hard enough.

"Where did you get it?"

"I... came across it on a walk," Steve said, as honestly as he could manage without involving Bucky. Things were clearly going south already and the last thing either of them needed was a pair of lawyers slapping god knows what on them in some police - did Asgard even have police? Surely they must, every civilised country did - cell. Steve did his best to look innocent, but Foggy was unwrapping the bindings and the moment the blunt metal head appeared, he reared back and fixed Steve with a glare that could have levelled the whole town.

"This... You didn't _find_ this on a walk. There's no way you could've stumbled across Mjölnir by _mistake_. Where did you say you were coming from?"

"I didn't..."

"This is stolen." Foggy insisted, jabbing a finger at the hammer, laying innocently on the table. Bucky was rising out of his seat, shooting panicked glances between Foggy, the hammer and Steve, approaching on silent feet. Steve reached for the hammer slowly, only to have Matt slap his hand out of the air with his stick before turning to Bucky.

"The pair of you - you're lying to us. How did you get Thor's hammer?"

"Thor - that hammer belongs to Thor?" Steve looked to Bucky, confused. "But Thor already has a hammer-"

"And now they're saying they've met the prince," Matt turned to Foggy in disbelief. Steve swallowed, edging his hand towards the hammer again; Foggy, engaged in some kind of mental conversation with Matt, wasn't paying attention to the movement of their suspect until the hammer was in Steve's hand. Thunder roared outside, rattling the cracked windows - and lightning struck the house, right down the centre. The floor was scorched black before it erupted into flames, already licking at the walls and spreading fast across the floor; Matt and Foggy took terrified, frantic steps back as Bucky leapt over the flames to Steve's side.

"Thieves!" Matt yelled, and Foggy tried to edge past to the door. Steve, panicking completely at having set their host's house alight, threw the hammer away, and it crashed through walls as it flew out of sight, he and Bucky dashing for the door to make their escape. Sweat trickled down their stinging faces as they staggered into the hallway, running towards the staircase on unsteady feet, coughing and lifting their shirts over their faces to try and keep the smoke out of their lungs. The heat was stifling, blistering their skin and choking them with smoke as they hurtled down the stairs.

Matt and Foggy were trapped on the top floor.

Steve turned to Bucky, shoving him ahead as they reached the main hallway at the bottom of the stairs.

"Go! Go! You've got to get out, go - if they find a star here - Bucky, go!"

"No! Not without you!"

"I'm coming," Steve promised, lying through his teeth, eyes watering with the heat. Bucky gave him a look that screamed I don't believe you, grasping at Steve's hands, trying to pull him after him.

"No - come with me, come now - the house is on fucking fire, Steve, take a look around - we don't have time to be doing this -"

"Bucky, they're trapped," he insisted, shaking himself free. "They might think I'm a thief but I'm not going to let them burn to death and be a murderer as well."

He turned around and ran back up the stairs, head pounding from lack of oxygen, lungs weak and struggling for breath, feeling like a sickly child with pneumonia all over again. Through the haze of shimmering air and blazing fire, he could see Matt struggling up onto a windowsill, Foggy behind him and trying to edge him through. Steve forced his way through, feeling the flames sear his skin, until he reached the pair of them. He grabbed Matt by the arm and yelled over the roar of the fire, "Come with me!"

Matt nodded, eerily calm. Even Foggy had no protests, and willingly ran after Steve, the pair of them gritting their teeth through the bite of the fire until they could hurl themselves headfirst down the stairs. The fire was lapping at their heels, eating the staircase eagerly behind them as the wood splintered and cracked, roof beams falling from the ceilings in showers of sparks that made Foggy yelp in terror. Steve kicked the beams out of the way and shielded the two lawyers as best he could with his body from the rest of the burning debris. Bucky was holding open the door as Steve barrelled through, dragging a quiet, pale Matt and a spluttering Foggy behind him.

The hammer was lying in the centre of the pathway.

Steve picked it up, ready to hurl it away in anger. But looking back at the burning ruin of the house stayed his hand. Swinging it had caused the lightning strike that had almost killed all four of them, and the one that had almost killed Bucky the first time in the crater. Throwing it destroyed the walls, and could spread the fires further by causing more lightning strikes. It vibrated eagerly in his hand, keen to destroy something else; it sickened him, swamping him with guilt, and he dropped it with a cry. It left a crater in the ground where it landed, and Bucky had to scoot back several feet to avoid falling in.

Foggy was staring at him in shock, Matt sat at his feet staring into space.

"You can wield the hammer."

"I - I didn't mean to - I honestly didn't m-mean to burn down your house - I'm so - I - please, forgive me-" _Forgive me? Is that all you can say for yourself, having torched their house and almost killed them?_ His stomach roiled and he fought down the bile, tears stinging his eyes as the night air warmed with the force of the blaze.

Matt fixed him with a look. "Go," he said bluntly.

Steve took Bucky's hand - hot enough to burn - and went.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to my wonderful beta [Dis](http://brooklynboos.tumblr.com), a true angel.

_An apple a day keeps the doctor away. No one's immune to bribery._  
\- Lokabrenna

Growing tired of the dank cave and its dripping stalactites, Loki stepped away from the fire embers and onto the outcrop of rock, searching between the stars for that skyship he had seen earlier. Clouds rolled above him, growing thicker and knitting as rain threatened. He rolled his runes in the palm of one hand idly as he considered the weather, catching himself thinking wistfully of the roars of thunder and cymbal-crashes of lightning felling trees before pulling his hood up around his face and cursing himself for allowing such sentimentality. Thor was an oaf who could not control his considerable temper, and there was nothing about his frequent fits of anger and bursts of excitement that Loki should miss, unless it was the atmospheric noises that always hid his own bouts of mischief so perfectly.

He scuttled, crab-like, down the path in the rock face and swung himself up onto the driver's bench of the carriage, clacking the reins smartly and whipping the horses into a gallop. There was a village signposted a league or so down the road, and he'd be damned if he spent another night in that twice-damned cave. The wheels rumbled over the road, creating a quiet, private thunder, and Loki kept his eyes resolutely focused forward to distract from any thoughts of his brother. He was disgusted with himself - growing wistful over thoughts of the oafish, idiot exile instead of the hammer, his birthright. Even with Baldr dead, he would never secure his hold over the Nine Realms without it. He sighed, cursing Thor yet again for having pushed Father too far in the first place.

The road was empty but for the odd straggler coming to the end of his journey as the village appeared over the blustering horizon. He pulled up to the inn just as the sky gave a lurch and a deafening roar of thunder loosened itself in flashes of lightning, rain pouring down as though an enormous unseen thing had upended a bucket. He left his brothers in the coach as he handed the reins to the stableboy, stalking into the inn and shaking the rain off his cloaked shoulders irritably.

The nearest empty table was in the corner by the window, dingy and hidden from the firelight, neighboured by a blind man and his companion who were having a furious whispered argument about something. Sighing, Loki accepted what he was given and took a seat, staring idly at the rings on his hands as he waited for the serving girl to approach.

"He had the hammer -"

Loki's ears pricked under his hood, and he glanced surreptitiously at his neighbours, who clearly hadn't noticed that they had drawn his attention.

"What exactly are you going to do about it, Matt? It's not like you can just stroll up to the royal palace and say, 'Hey, I'm here to see the king, because his hammer has been stolen'. Don't you think there'd be some sort of national search on if the hammer was lost? We've heard nothing. Odin would be raging by now!"

"But it's obvious they're not supposed to have it, they don't even know what it can do-"

"They're not exactly threatening, though, are they? Admittedly that blond was built like a brick shithouse-" the other man grimaced, "but if anything they're the tools of the heist. It's not them masterminding it."

"I think Daredevil should look into it," the blind man said stubbornly, raising his chin in defiance. His partner grabbed his shoulder and lowered his voice angrily.

"No, Matt. Daredevil should keep his fat head out of everyone else's business for once!"

Loki had heard all he needed in order to pique his interest. Sliding smoothly into the free seat at their table, he raised one eyebrow and regarded the pair of them from beneath his hood. "The king is in fact aware of Mjolnir's loss, so any information you have about it would be welcome."

"And who exactly are you? Another thief trying to get the reward money?" 'Matt's' friend asked harshly.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Hardly." He lowered his hood, the whole inn suddenly going deathly quiet as the pale skin and lamplike green eyes of the prince came into view. He fixed the man with a glower, fighting the urge to use his seiđr to loosen his stubborn tongue. "I am Loki of Asgard, and you will tell me what you know or I shall loosen your tongue for you." He smiled grimly. "And you _really_ don't want me to do that."  
  


* * *

  
The travellers had fled in the direction of Wall, according to the blind man in the inn. Loki pondered this information carefully. All of a sudden, inspiration - understanding - came to him. How could the hammer have been up? It had been with those travellers - in the sky. On board the skyship, no doubt. He had been close enough almost to touch it, but his own arrogance had blinded him to the obvious, and his temper - which was more like Thor's than he was willing to admit sometimes - had got the better of him. And now he would lose it again, if he did not hurry. Nothing of Asgard crossing the wall was the same on the other side. He cursed, spat, and got up, swiping all of his things into his pack with a wave of his hand, and rushed back to the carriage. His brothers jolted awake inside the black hull, Vidarr's sleepy, stumbling voice mumbling "What's going on?" It was no wonder, with the sluggishness of their reactions, that he and Vali had gotten themselves killed and out of the running for the rulership of Asgard before this whole ridiculous situation had even started. Loki snapped for him to _shut up!_ and cracked the reins, sending the horses careening down the thin, winding road down into the valley floor.

He heard the sounds of creaking timbers and pulleys, wind snapping between tree branches, and pulled the horses to a halt in a thicket of trees where the carriage would be well hidden before jumping down to investigate. He kept his hood up in case of dwarves, raiders or worse - fuck knows what on earth would be hiding in the shadows of this place, especially if they realised that the lone traveller looking like such easy prey was a prince of Asgard - and stepped carefully, avoiding scattered branches and twigs as best he could to prevent his footfalls giving him away.

The creaking was coming from around the crook in the valley, where voices were carrying on the wind. He knelt by a small pool and cast his hands over the smooth surface of the water before washing his face with it, feeling the warmth of seiđr against his cheeks. Drawing his hood back, he cast an eye over his reflection - a grizzled man in his fifties, with greying hair and a hooked nose but Loki's familiar brilliantly green eyes - and got to his feet again. The wind whipped at the bottom of his cloak as he stepped around the edge of the rock, taking care to keep where the wind would bite least at his fragile disguise. It would not fool elves, but Asgardians and the creatures of the innermost realms rarely could see through any glamour he applied. He had fooled Thor often enough even as a child, which spoke volumes about his idiot brother's perceptiveness.

The skyship came into view as he passed around a thick pillar of rock. Above him the skies opened, rain beating down around him until he and every other exposed surface in the valley was soaked and slick with water. Drops clung to his eyelashes, filming over his eyes, and he tugged his hood up angrily. He was already soaked, of course, but he needed to be able to see clearly to avoid scouts or watchmen on board. He could already see the name of the ship in brilliant golden letters emblazoned across her stern: _Bilskirnir_.

Loki smirked and drew his hood more tightly around his face.  
  


* * *

  
The Captain was sat at his desk when the door to his cabin opened, light footfalls echoing over the floorboards.

"Sif, I will attend to everything in just a moment, I promise-"

"Dear me, brother, has it been so long?" Loki drawled, making a show of looking around the cabin for her before shaking his head. "So sorry to disappoint, but you are mistaken."

Thor's head shot up from his paperwork, eyes widening at the sight of Loki crossing the room to perch himself on the edge of Thor's desk, crossing his legs neatly.

Thor's gaze roved over him. It had been years since he had seen his brother - since he had seen any of his brothers at all, or his mother and father - and he drank in every familiar detail hungrily, tracing the leonine back and narrow, sparkling eyes. Loki had always been the fairest and slightest of all of the house of Odin, even more than their mother; all narrow hips and wiry muscle, silver-tongued and as beautiful as any of the precious stones and metals the dwarves mined. He reached out hesitantly to brush over one pale hand, afraid that if he tried to make contact, the vision would disappear and he would start awake, having been lost in the latest of many dreams.

"What are you doing here, Loki?"

"Is that any way to treat a beloved brother?" Loki pouted, head tilting mockingly to one side. Thor hated him when he was like this; always treating people as though they were below him, always finding the weak spots in people's armour and forcing them wide open with calculated barbs and superior expressions. "I'm beginning to think you're perhaps not pleased to see me, after all."

"It has been too long, brother," Thor said formally, voice hard and eyes harder, "although I cannot say I have missed the mind games and the constant untruths."

"You love to play," Loki smirked, preening like a well-bred cat on the corner of Thor's desk table, "and you do it so beautifully. How am I to resist?"

"And you were always the one to lecture me on my self-control, brother."

"That's because I had some which I chose to ignore," Loki retorted, "whereas yours was always entirely absent." He grinned at Thor and leaned closer, his voice dropping to a seductive murmur as he trailed one light hand over Thor's chest, fingers pinching at the soft nipple beneath the fabric of Thor's shirt and making him take a sharp breath in. Loki's smile widened, the cat that had caught the canary, and he positively purred. "I've missed you so, brother..."

"There's something very wrong about you calling me _brother_ when you are... doing that," Thor replied, voice already becoming weak. Damn Loki and his tempting touches, those bewitching eyes boring into Thor's as he smirked - his brother was a gifted seiđr-user, but Thor was and always had been far too aware of the fact that Loki had never needed to use magic to entice him into doing things he never should even have dreamed of. His brother was now practically sitting in his lap, legs spread either side of Thor's body on the desk, and he draped himself over Thor's chest, wicked tongue teasing at all the tenderest spots on the side of Thor's neck.

"Loki, stop," Thor mumbled, pushing uselessly at his brother's shoulders. He was already falling under Loki's spell, feeling drunk and woozy as he always did whenever Loki - his brother, his _younger_ brother, _for Odin's sake_ , _Thor_ \- wound those long, slim fingers into his hair and pulled so gently, guiding their mouths together. He knew it would mean nothing - that Loki was only finding a means to an end, and that in the heat of the moment Thor would spill whatever his brother asked if only to keep those hands on him a moment longer - but he could no longer find it in himself to care.  
  


* * *

  
Loki bargained for passage to Wall with Thor's broad hands on his waist and his brother's long, golden hair tangled in his fist. Thor arched and gasped beneath him, promising any number of wondrous things if Loki would only relent, but he held firm and kept the other hand pressed to Thor's chest, pinning him to the chair.

"Take me," Thor gasped, face flushed and glistening with sweat. Loki smirked, tugging at his hair and enjoying the rumbling groan his actions produced. Even as children, when they sparred, Loki had always easily gained the upper hand by using his mouth to weaken Thor's huge, clumsy defences. _All brawn and no brains_ , he tutted disapprovingly to himself, and settled his weight in Thor's lap, laughing at the whimper it brought to his ears.

"Thor, Thor," he murmured, "you know what I want. Give it to me, and I will allow you what you want in turn. It's a fair trade, brother."

"There is nothing fair about you, brother, but your form," Thor retorted, eyes glittering defiantly. Loki hissed a sharp intake of breath. Thor was coming out to play, and he was coming out swinging. "You are and always have been a liar and a cheat."

"Then you have always been a coward and a fool, to bow to me," Loki snarled. "Passage to Wall."

"Or what, Loki? What bargaining chips have you but your body? Who is the fool here, to come and expect to trade something for nothing?"

Loki lashed out, hand connecting with Thor's cheek with a resounding crack that echoed around the whole cabin. Thor's head snapped to one side with a loud groan, and when he looked back at his brother his lip was split and oozing blood, snagged on one of Loki's rings, and his eyes were glassy.

"Passage to Wall."

"Why is Wall so important, brother? Hardly one of your usual haunts. Too far from the realms of the monsters that birthed you - lying, sneaking serpents -"

The next slap was even harder, leaving a deep cut over Thor's cheekbone. "Stop stalling and answer me, brother, or I will remove your tongue and _take_ what I want."

"Whatever it is, I get a share." Thor answered, eyes focusing as he tried to force his brother's hand. They both knew even Loki didn't dare rouse him too far, lest he awaken the Berserker for whose actions Thor had suffered exile. In that state Thor was barely himself, it was true, but he was as violent and unrestrained as the storms he commanded, and locked inside a cabin with a creature twice his height and almost four times his weight was a situation even Loki knew better than to get into.

"A share is not something I am able nor willing to give."

"Then you will walk."

"I will not!"

"A share, brother, or no passage at all."

Loki hissed, baring his teeth, but acquiesced. Thor took it as a rare victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have no idea how hard it was to not write "...and I am burdened with glorious purpose!" at you-know-which point!

**Author's Note:**

> Dis told me that Sarah/her mysterious stranger reads a lot like Rhaegar/Lyanna. Any similarity to ASOIAF is wholly unintentional, though amusing.


End file.
